"I am no assassin!" I shouted, struggling in their grasp. "Let me go, villains, let me go! I tell you, Monsieur's life is at stake—Monsieur's very life, I tell you!"
They paid me no heed. Not one of them—save hat lying knave Constant—knew me as other than the shabby fellow who had acted suspiciously in the morning. They were dragging me to the door in spite of my shouts and struggles, when suddenly a ringing voice spoke from above:
"What is this rumpus? Who talks of Monsieur's life?"
The guards halted dead, and I cried out joyfully:
"Vigo!"
"Yes, I am Vigo," the big man answered, striding down the stairs. "Who are you?"
I wanted to shout, "Félix Broux, Monsieur's page," but a sort of nightmare dread came over me lest Vigo, too, should disclaim me, and my voice stuck in my throat.
"Whoever you are, you will be taught not to make a racket in M. le Duc's hall. By the saints! it's the boy Félix."
At the friendliness in his voice the guards dropped their hands from me.
"M. Vigo," I said, "I have news for Monsieur of the gravest moment. I am come on a matter of life and death. And I am stopped in the hall by lackeys."