While de Landas spoke, Sancho kept his eyes resolutely fixed upon the ground, and his shaggy black beard hid every line of his mouth. Nor were de Landas and his young friends very observant or deeply versed in the science of psychology, else, no doubt, they would have noticed that though Sancho's attitude had remained entirely servile, his rough, bony hand was clutching his cap with a nervy grip which betrayed a stupendous effort at self-control. The next moment, however, he raised his eyes once more and looked his employer squarely and quite respectfully in the face.
'Your Magnificence need have no fear,' he said. 'I understand perfectly.'
'Very well,' rejoined de Landas lightly. 'Then just repeat the message as thou wilt deliver it before His Highness the Duke of Parma, and then thou canst go.'
Obediently Sancho went through the business required of him. 'I am to tell His Highness,' he said, 'that on any day which he may select, Monseigneur le Marquis de Landas and his friends will provoke a riot within this city—a serious riot, wherein every civil and military authority will be forced to take a part—and that this will be the opportunity for which His Highness hath been waiting. I am to tell him also that while the rioters inside Cambray will be engaged in throwing stones at one another, the Duke of Parma need only to strike one blow and he can enter the city unopposed, with his armies, in the name of our Most Catholic King Philip of Spain.'
De Landas gave a short, dry laugh.
'Thou hast a good memory, fellow,' he said: 'or a wholesome fear of the lash—which is it?'
'A profound respect for Your Magnificence,' replied Sancho, literally cringing and fawning now before his noble master, like a dog who has been whipped; 'and the earnest desire to serve him well in all things.'
'Parbleu!' was de Landas' calm rejoinder.
Two minutes later, Sancho was dismissed. He walked backwards, his spine almost bent double in the excess of his abasement; nor did he straighten out his tall, bony figure till Pierre had finally closed the door after him and there was the width of an antechamber and a corridor between him and the possibility of being overheard. Then he gave a smothered cry, like that of a choking bull; he threw his cap down upon the floor and stamped upon it; kicked it with his foot, as if it were the person of an enemy whom he hated with all the bitterness of his soul. Finally he turned, and raising his arm, he clenched his fist and shook it with a gesture of weird and impotent menace in the direction from whence he had just come, whilst in his deep-set eyes there glowed a fire of rancour and of fury which of a truth would have caused those young gallants to think. Then he picked up his cap and almost ran out into the street.