His question seemed to snap in an instant the garrotte about her brain. She flung herself on her knees before him with a lamentable cry—
“They have killed my Luc, brother—my Luc, who took me from your wards of mercy, sins and all. They have killed my sweet singing cricket, my merry, merry cricket, that had no guile in all its roguish heart. They put their heel upon him in the path—what are songs to them!—and left my summer desolate. If I weep one moment, I know that blood will scald my cheeks and drain my heart, and I shall die before I act. O, brother! keep back my tears a little. Show me what to do!”
She clutched in agony at his robe.
“Come,” he said; “the way is clear.”
* * * * *
The feast was served to the tick of the hour by lay brothers, another blank-envisaged form directing them. The tables smoked with cheer, and de Regnac rubbed his hands. There were the joints of fat kid and the flagons of old Malaga—salmis of quail, too; truffled sausages; herrings with mustard sauce, things of strong flavour meet for warriors. The steam itself was an invitation—the smell, the sparkle. Only one thing lacked—the Prior’s grace. De Regnac, bestial always, but most like a tiger in the view of unattainable meats, crowded the interval with maledictions and curses. His courtesy stopped anywhere on the threshold of his appetites. Baulked of his banquet, he would be ready to make a holocaust of the whole hospital. Yet he dared not be the first to put his fingers in the dish.
“Where is our host?” he growled. “Doth he fear the test—or death—a coward faint with indecision?”
Even with the word, he found him at his elbow—an old, dry pipe of a man, wheezing thin air. The father’s face under its dropping cowl (no doubt his lungs were too crazy for the vizor) showed stark with rime; his forehead was streaked with it; his eyes were half-thawed pools. He spoke. Hoarse and feeble, his voice seemed to crow from the attics of a ruined tenement, high up among the winds.
“Fall to, soldiers, fall to! There is no grace like honest appetite. Fall to! And they tell me ye have travelled far to claim our hospitality. Fall to!”
De Regnac smacked his shoulder boisterously, so that he staggered.