But it's too late, too late
for my young Seigneur!" he added in mockery, and again he began to hum
in a sort of amiable derision:
"My little tender heart,
O gai, vive le roi!
My little tender heart,
O gai, vive le roi!
'Tis for a grand baron,
Vive le roi, la reine!
'Tis for a grand baron,
Vive Napoleon!"
The words of the last two lines swelled out far louder than the dwarf
meant, for few save Medallion and Monsieur De la Riviere had ever heard
him sing. His concert-house was the Rock of Red Pigeons, his favourite
haunt, his other home, where, it was said, he met the Little Good Folk of
the Scarlet Hills, and had gay hours with them. And this was a matter of
awe to the timid habitants.
At the words, "Vive Napoleon!" a hand touched him on the shoulder. He
turned and saw the stranger looking at him intently, his eyes alight.
"Sing it," he said softly, yet with an air of command. Parpon hesitated,
shrank back.
"Sing it," he insisted, and the request was taken up by others, till
Parpon's face flushed with a sort of pleasurable defiance. The stranger
stooped and whispered something in his ear. There was a moment's pause,
in which the dwarf looked into the other's eyes with an intense
curiosity--or incredulity--and then Medallion lifted the little man on to
the railing of the veranda, and over the heads and into the hearts of the
people there passed, in a divine voice, a song known to many, yet coming
as a new revelation to them all:
"My mother promised it,
O gai, rive le roi!
My mother promised it,
O gai, vive le roi!
To a gentleman of the king,
Vive le roi, la reine!
To a gentleman of the king,
Vive Napoleon!"
This was chanted lightly, airily, with a sweetness almost absurd, coming
as it did from so uncouth a musician.
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