"But, monsieur, they've gone to inform! You'll be taken for killing Lucas."
"I doubt it. Themselves smell too strong of blood to dare bruit the matter. Natheless, if you can walk now, we'll make good time to the gate."
But for all his haste, he would not start till I had had some bread and soup down in the kitchen.
"We must take good care of you, boy Félix," he said. "For where the St. Quentins would be without you, I tremble to think."
I set out a new man. In three steps, it seemed to me, we had reached the city gate, to find the way blocked by a company of twenty or thirty horse, the St. Quentin uniform flaunting gay in the sun. The nearest trooper set up a shout at sight of us, when Vigo, coming out suddenly from behind a nag, took M. le Comte in his big embrace. He released him immediately, looking immensely startled at his own demonstration.
M. Étienne laughed out at him.
"Be more careful, I beg you, Vigo! You will make me imagine myself of some importance."
"I thought you swallowed up," Vigo growled. "You had been here—I couldn't get a trace of you."
"I was killing Lucas."
"Sacré! He's dead?"