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Updated: June 11, 2025
There were few abroad, and those were going their ways without looking behind them. A better time for a secret rendezvous could not be, and Messer Basterga's heart leapt up and his spirits rose as he followed the cloaked figure. At the end of the bridge the man turned leftwards on to a deserted wharf between two mills; Basterga followed.
But Claude's flat refusal to go farther with the matter, a refusal on which, up to the time of Basterga's abrupt entrance, the Syndic had made no impression, was a factor; and reluctantly, after some thought, Blondel put him out of his mind. To do the thing himself was his next idea.
Had it been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two men to the upper room, he would have remarked perhaps with surprise, since he had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper that in proportion as they mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arrogance ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but a sneaking and awkward man who crossed the threshold.
To strike down another, and turning, range himself in the van of the foreigners with a mighty "Savoy! Savoy!" was Basterga's next action; and it sufficed. The panic-stricken burghers, apprised of treason in their ranks, gave back every way. The Savoyards saw their advantage, rallied, and pressed them.
He heard her shake it. Then he guessed that she fetched a key, for after an interval, which seemed an age, he caught the grating of the wards in the lock. After that, she was quiet so long, that but for the apprehensions of Basterga's coming, which weighed on his coward soul, he must have gone up in sheer jealousy so see what she was doing. Not that he distrusted her.
An instant he imagined it Basterga's; and hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake to whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga's; and finding voice and breath again, "Quick!" he muttered fiercely, "do you hear, girl? Get it! Get it before they enter!" Her hand was on the latch of the inner door.
She nodded, unable to repeat the words. "I was at the door of Basterga's room last night." "Last night!" "Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into the lock when I heard " "Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth. "Hush! Hush!" The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the word more clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!"
The word brought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?" "Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing." "But if I cannot do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. He to penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable man and perhaps be caught in the act!
And there was another way: there were others through whom the thing could be done. Grio, indeed, who had access to the room and the box, was Basterga's creature; and the Syndic dared not tamper with him. But there was a third lodger, a young fellow, of whom the inquiries he had made respecting the house had apprised him.
In the latter place he found the key, thrust out of sight between door and floor, where doubtless it was Basterga's custom to hide it. He drew it out, and with a grim face set it in the lock. "Quick!" muttered a voice in his ear, and turning he saw that the Syndic was trembling with eagerness. "Quick, quick! Or he may return!" Claude smiled.
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