How it thrilled me—that cry echoing up and down the corridors! What would I not have given for the chance to ride forth, thigh to thigh with these lusty ruffians, to give and take good blows! Instead of that, here was I a prisoner—and at the thought my eyes turned to my companion.
He laughed as he caught my glance.
“Come, M. de Marsan,” he said, “your face is an open book. You are longing to fare out with these blood-letters. You heard M. le Comte instruct me to secure you a new equipage. Besides, I doubt not you stand in need of meat and drink, as well. So come,—for twenty minutes is not a long time.”
His last words, spoken after a moment’s teasing hesitation, brought the hot blood leaping to my cheek.
“Twenty minutes!” I stammered. “We go also, then, Monsieur?”
“Assuredly,” he laughed. “Come.”
I followed him from the room blindly, unable to speak, trembling with excitement. What a chance! What fortune! I would show whether I or that cursed, hawk-faced d’Aurilly was to be believed! It made my blood boil to think of his cool insolence,—his black treachery,—for in my heart of hearts I was certain that it was he who had stolen my letter—but to prove it, there was the problem!
Down the stair we went to a great room piled with arms, where a mob of crazy men were already choosing what they needed. With great joy I found my own sword among a pile of others,—its leathern scabbard did not proclaim the Toledo within, thank Heaven!—and in five minutes was armed with pistolets and poniard, clothed in a very handsome suit of black, with great boots, whose spurs clanked most merrily as I rattled down the stair behind my friend—for such, even in the few minutes I had known him, I was determined he should be.
“Now for food,” he said, and I was not sorry to follow him to a room on the lower floor where there was a long table piled with meat and drink. “In faith, I have need of it myself,” he added, as he dropped into the seat at my right, but his appetite was far from keeping pace with mine.
As I ate I looked at him, and my heart warmed to his frank face and honest eyes. Young he still was,—not more than a year or two my senior,—but there was that in his air which proclaimed the soldier and man of affairs, accustomed to the smiles of fortune and quite ready to coerce her should she attempt to turn her face away. I had already realized my helplessness without a friend in this great house, and I blessed the chance that had thrown me into this man’s keeping.