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"Sure," I replied with a brevity worthy of Bezers himself. And I was right. We trooped down stairs, making as little noise as possible; with the result that Mirepoix only took the alarm, and came upon us when we were at the outer door, bungling with the lock. Then I made short work of him, checking his scared words of remonstrance by flashing my dagger before his eyes.
The two at the upper end talked fast, and from the little that reached us, I judged that the priest was pressing some course on his host, which the latter declined to take. Once Bezers raised his voice. "I have my own ends to serve!" he broke out angrily, adding a fierce oath which the priest did not rebuke, "and I shall serve them. But there I stop. You have your own.
We had our daggers, and that gave me some comfort. If we could once gain entrance to the house opposite, we had only to beg, or in the last resort force our way downstairs and out, and then to hasten with what speed we might to Pavannes' dwelling. Clearly it was a question of time only now; whether Bezers' band or we should first reach it. And struck by this I whispered Marie to be quick.
For a moment I looked at the door of our room, half-minded to attack it, and fight our way out, taking the chance of reaching the street before Bezers' folk should have recovered from their surprise and gone down. But then I looked at Madame. How could we ensure her safety in the struggle? While I hesitated the choice was taken from us.
He had heard our returning footsteps, and eyed me suspiciously; but gave way after a moment with a grunt of doubt I hastened on, reaching the door of the room in which we had supped in time to see something which filled me with grim astonishment; so much so that I stood rooted where I was, too proud at any rate to interfere. Bezers was standing, the leering priest at his elbow.
"Bah!" he exclaimed with a sneer, "business first and pleasure afterwards! Bezers will obtain satisfaction in his own way, I promise you that! And at his own time. And it will not be on unfledged bantlings like you. But what is this for?"
"Well, then, the cause of the Church?" the priest persisted. "Bah! The Church? It is you, my friend!" Bezers rejoined, rudely tapping his companion at that moment in the act of crossing himself on the chest. "The Church?" he continued; "no, no, my friend. I will tell you what you are doing.
I would have told her all and been thankful, but the priest was within hearing or barely out of it; and I had seen too much pass between him and Bezers to be willing to say anything before him. "You must see M. de Pavannes?" she repeated, gazing at me. "I must," I replied with decision. "Then you shall. That is exactly what I am going to help you to do," she exclaimed. "He is not here.
And so we clattered up the steep street of Caylus with a pleasant melancholy upon us, and passed, not without a more serious thought, the gloomy, frowning portals, all barred and shuttered, of the House of the Wolf, and under the very window, sombre and vacant, from which Bezers had incited the rabble in their attack on Pavannes' courier. We had gone by day, and we came back by night.
How I prayed amid a scene of the wildest uproar and excitement that the mob might be first! Let there be only a short conflict between Bezers' men and the people, and in the confusion Pavannes might yet escape. Hope awoke in the turmoil. Above the yells of the crowd a score of deep voices about me thundered "a Wolf! a Wolf!"
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