“I have not strength now to answer all these interrogatives. I have a story to tell; but I keep it for dinner. Let us hasten to thy apartment. De Breze is doubtless there waiting us.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Unprescient of the perils that awaited him, absorbed in the sense of existing discomfort, cold, and hunger, Fox lifted his mournful visage from his master’s dressing-gown, in which he had encoiled his shivering frame, on the entrance of De Breze and the concierge of the house in which Lemercier had his apartment. Recognising the Vicomte as one of his master’s acquaintances, he checked the first impulse that prompted him to essay a feeble bark, and permitted himself, with a petulant whine, to be extracted from his covering, and held in the arms of the murderous visitor.
“Dieu des dieux!” ejaculated De Breze, “how light the poor beast has become!” Here he pinched the sides and thighs of the victim. “Still,” he said, “there is some flesh yet on these bones. You may grill the paws, fricassee the shoulders, and roast the rest. The rognons and the head accept for yourself as a perquisite.” Here he transferred Fox to the arms of the concierge, adding, “Vite au besogne, mon ami.”
“Yes, Monsieur. I must be quick about it while my wife is absent. She has a faiblesse for the brute. He must be on the spit before she returns.”
“Be it so; and on the table in an hour—five o’clock precisely—I am famished.”
The concierge disappeared with Fox. De Breze then amused himself by searching into Frederic’s cupboards and buffets, from which he produced a cloth and utensils necessary for the repast. These he arranged with great neatness, and awaited in patience the moment of participation in the feast.
The hour of five had struck before Savarin and Frederio entered the salon; and at their sight De Breze dashed to the staircase and called out to the concierge to serve the dinner.
Frederic, though unconscious of the Thyestean nature of the banquet, still looked round for the dog; and, not perceiving him, began to call out, “Fox! Fox! where hast thou hidden thyself?”