The three emerged into the street. Rockhurst paused, his silent laughter stimulated afresh at sight of Marcelin, who stood doubled in two under the burden of the great white bag, his basket with the two bottle necks protruding, horn-like, on his arm, and his lantern illumining a grin of supreme satisfaction. Then he glanced down at the purse in his hand—it lay in the hollow with a highly comforting weight—and from thence to the Spaniard, who had begun to crawl away, supporting himself against the wall.
“Señor Capitan,” he cried ironically after him, “I wish you once more, and I trust finally, a very good night!—Marcelin, I’ll take that basket: we must make good speed.”
He halted, however, yet a breathing space to gaze at the great front of the house where, from window to window, gleamed a light on its upward way, suggestive of a bed-going procession.
“This is how we live at Bruges!” he murmured to himself, dropped the purse philosophically into his pocket, thrust his right arm through the basket and, his hand pressing on his rapier hilt, the tip of the scabbard jauntily raising the cloak behind him, started off at a swing.
Marcelin followed at a gay if uneven hobble, occasionally staggering under his succulent burden.
Old Chitterley opened the door to his master.
“His Majesty sleeps,” said he, finger on lips; “I looked in but just now, to place a log on the fire: his Majesty slumbered very sound, as I heard and saw.”
Then the speaker’s eye wandered to the basket on his lordship’s arm, the contents of which were agreeably discernible, and to the improvised sack on Marcelin’s back, for which the latter’s jubilant face was warrant.
“Heaven be praised, my lord!” he exclaimed fervently, as he extended his hand to relieve his master. The tragedy of events had robbed the old servant of all sense of humour. “His Majesty shall have supper to-night; our house is not disgraced.”