He opened his eyes at that, fixed and unwinking; but he made no attempt to rise.
“Let them crack the shells and wriggle out,” he said. “I have a fancy they will be a poisonous brood, and that La Bourbe is pleasantly remote from their centres of incubation.”
“Timorous! I would not lose a thrill in this orgy of liberty.”
“But if you lost——?” he checked himself, pursed his lips, and nodded his head on the pillow.
“Jean-Louis, I saw the Sieur Julien carried to the scaffold last night. He went foaming and raving of a plot in the prisons to release the aristocrats in their thousands upon us. There is an adder to reproduce itself throughout the city! Truly, as you say, the kennels will swarm with it.”
“And many will be bitten? My friend, my friend, there is some dark knowledge in that astute head of yours. And shall I cower at home when my kind are in peril?”
“My faith! we all cower in bed.”
“But I am going out.”
“Be advised!” (He struggled quickly up on his elbow. His face bore a clammy look in the sunlight.) “Be advised and lie close in your form—like a hare, Jean-Louis—like a hare that hears the distant beaters crying on the dogs. Twitch no whisker and prick not an ear. Take solace of your covert and lie close and scratch yourself, and thank God you have a nail for every flea-bite.”
“What ails thee of this day then, morose?”