“Breaking in, camarado? Why, not at all,” responded Rockhurst, in his own Franco-Spanish. “Merely entering where I am expected, and my servant there holds the light.—Come in, Marcelin.”
He stepped lightly through the doorway, leaving his cloak in the other’s grasp. His voice, in the undertone they both deemed prudent to adopt, yet conveyed the perfection of mockery.
“Expected? Cuerpo de Dios!” said the gallant, and fell back a step, blank surprise robbing him, it seemed, of all other emotion for the present.
“Even so, Señor Caballero, witness this key. (Up with the light, Marcelin, that the señor may see for himself.) Witness the token.” He brandished first the key, then the scented handkerchief, with gay gesture. “May I trouble you for my cloak? Then I shall wish you good night.”
Marcelin, grinning, stood between the two, his back against the door-post, the basket on his arm, holding up the lantern. The light fell full on the Spaniard’s visage: young and handsome enough it was, though now livid with fury. Still speechless, he seemed rooted to the spot, his black eyes starting, the wings of his nostrils distended upon his angry breath.
Rockhurst waited a second or two, then with a laugh:—
“Marcelin,” he ordered, “relieve the noble Capitan of my cloak: he will understand my impatience.”
The little valet, shifting the lantern into the basket, put out his hand obediently for the ragged garment in question. But here the newcomer, suddenly leaping into active ferocity, made a headlong rush into the garden, and had not Rockhurst by a dexterous step aside avoided the onslaught, would have seized his rival by the throat.
“Come in, Marcelin, and shut the door,” came the mocking voice from the darkness. “Let us unravel this little question of precedence in snug privacy. We shall want your lantern, my friend.”
The garden, tree-shaded and high-walled on all sides, seemed to shut in and concentrate the night’s gloom. The sound of two swords, hissing out of the scabbards even as the words were spoken, was sinister in the darkness.