United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers' men who had kept their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of us, encumbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could have attacked the handful on the gallery on both flanks. But the mob had no leaders, and no plan of operations.
We had thought that Bezers when joined there by his troopers would not be able to get relays; and that on this account we might by travelling post overtake him; and possibly slip by him between that place and Paris. But we learned at Chateauroux that his troop had received fresh orders to go to Orleans and await him there; the result being that he was able to push forward with relays so far.
"Go! go!" he continued to cry violently. "Have I brought you so far safely that you will cheat me of my vengeance at the last, and provoke me to kill you? Away! and take these blind puppies with you! Reckon me as much your enemy now as ever! And if I meet you, be sure you will meet a foe! Begone, M. de Pavannes, begone!" "But, M. de Bezers," Louis persisted, "hear me. It takes two to "
The Vidame's hand flashed up above the priest's head, and the cross-hilt of his sheathed sword crashed down with awful force, and still more awful passion, on the other's tonsure! The wretch went down like a log, without a word, without a cry! Amid a roar of rage from a thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared within!
I looked furtively, and turned away again, shivering. "Why," I muttered, "why did she do it?" "She had failed you know to get her sister back to Pavannes' house, where she would have fallen an easy victim. Bezers, who knew Madame d'O, prevented that.
Not one of us doubted the horrible meaning of the note, its covert threat. Civil wars and religious hatred, and I fancy Italian modes of thought, had for the time changed our countrymen to beasts. Far more dreadful things were done then than this which Bezers threatened even if he meant it literally far more dreadful things were suffered.
"And that," Madame herself retorted, raising her head, while her voice quivered with indignation and anger, "was the Abbess of the Ursulines. Your suspicions are base, worthy of you and unworthy of me, M. le Vidame! Diane!" she continued sharply, taking her sister's arm, and casting a disdainful glance at Bezers, "let us go. I want to be with my husband. I am stifled in this room."
I thought instead of an occasion, not so very long ago, when the Vicomte being at home, we had had a great hawking party. Bezers and Catherine had ridden up the street together, and Catherine giving the cripple a piece of money, Bezers had flung to him all his share of the game. And my heart sank. Only for a moment, however. The man was gone; or was going at any rate.
Not surrender him, not fling him bodily to the people? No not that: I felt sure he would let no others share his vengeance that his pride would not suffer that. And even while I wondered the doubt was solved. I saw Bezers raise his hand in a peculiar fashion.
Yet he seemed to pause, while all, even that yelling crowd below, held their breath. The next moment, glaring askance at one another like two dogs unevenly coupled, he and Bezers shot shoulder to shoulder into the doorway, and in another jot of time would have been out of sight. But then, in that instant, I saw something happen.
Word Of The Day