“Tell me,” I said, “what is it?”
“Monsieur, the poor man that you captured! they are torturing him in the yard.”
I pointed with my hand to a window. Without, all during our meal, had been a confused clatter of voices and the lurid smoke of torches rising about the glass.
“Yes,” she sobbed, quite overcome. “It is not right, monsieur. It will bring a curse upon the place.”
I ran from the room, my blood on fire. Whatever his offence to me, I had sooner let the rascal go than that he should fall into the hands of drunken patriots.
The yard was a paved space scooped from the rear of the house. A well with a windlass pierced it about the middle, and round the low wall of this were seated a dozen red-bonnets, our own four prominent, shouting and quarrelling and voluble as parrots. Broken bottles strewed the ground, and here and there a torch was stuck into the chinks of the stones, informing all with a jumping glare of red.
I pushed past two or three frightened onlookers, and rushed out into the open.
“Where is he?” I cried in a heat. “What the devil! am I not to pass judgment on my own!”
A moment’s silence fell. The faces of all were turned up to me, scowling and furious. In the pause a pitiful voice came booming and wailing up from the very bowels of the well itself.
“Merci! messieurs, merci! and I will conduct you to the treasure!”