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The Syndic nodded. "And costly too, I doubt not?" with an admiring glance. "Costly?" Messer Blondel repeated the word, and when he had done so turned on the other a look that led the Captain to think that he was going to be ill again. Then, "It cost me it will cost me" again a spasm contorted the Syndic's face "I don't know what it will not have cost me before it is paid for, Messer Blandano!"
"You thought it was broken?" Blandano said, wondering much, and looking in his turn at the phial. "Yes, I thought that it was broken. I am much obliged to you. Much, very much obliged to you," the Syndic repeated, with a deep sigh, his hands still moving nervously about his dress. Then, after a moment's pause, "Will you ring the bell?" he said.
Beside it stood a tiny phial of medicine; a phial strangely shaped and strange looking, containing something not unlike the green cordial of the Carthusians. "It troubles me a good deal, too," Blandano said. "There are seven men absent in the fourth ward. And two men, whose wives are urgent with me that they should have leave." "Leave?" the Syndic cried.
Dexterously he caught the bottle in his huge palm, and with an air of modest achievement was going to set it on the table, when he saw that the Syndic had fallen back in his chair, his face ghastly. Blandano was more used to death in the field than in the house; and in a panic he took two steps towards the door to call for help.
As it is so cold, I think you may pass the word to pretermit the rounds to-night save two. At what hours would you suggest?" Blandano considered his own comfort as the other expected he would and answered, "Early and late, say an hour before midnight and an hour before dawn". "Then let be it as you suggest. But see" with returning asperity "that those rounds go, and at their hours.
"Yes." "Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal which ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder I think Captain Blandano and I may deal with him." A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all.
"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of "The Syndic of the guard? How came " the majority drowned such murmurings under a chorus of applause. "We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turned to the door.
"Well!" he muttered, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtfully before him, "we must not wear the men out. There is no moon now, is there?" "No." "And the enemy can attempt nothing without light," Blondel continued, thinking aloud. "See here, Blandano, we must not put too heavy a burden on our people. I see that.
And when Blandano, unable to make out what he wanted, and suspecting a stroke of a mortal disease, turned again to the door, persisting in his intention of getting aid, the Syndic found strength to seize his sleeve, and almost instantly regained his speech. "There!" he gasped, "there! The phial! Put it down!" Captain Blandano placed it on the table, wondering much.
Do the men grumble much?" "It is as much as I can do to make them go the rounds," Blandano answered. "Some plead the weather; and some argue that, with President Rochette, whose word is as good as his bond, on the point of coming to an agreement with us, the rounds are a farce!" The Syndic shrugged his shoulders.
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