“Good! come then,” and throwing a gold-piece on the table he started toward the door.
Not until that instant did I remember that the inn must have a keeper, and that the keeper would have ears, which he had no doubt kept wide open during all this talk. I looked around for him, and as though guessing my thought, he shambled slowly forward from a dark corner—as ill-favored a villain as I ever saw.
“Is there anything else monsieur wishes?” he asked, looking at me with a glance so venomous that I recoiled as though a snake had struck at me.
“No,” I stammered, “except to tell you that there is your money.”
He picked up the coin without a word and spun it in his hand, while I hastened after my companion, anxious to escape from that sinister place into the clear day. I found him awaiting me just outside the door.
“Our horses will be here in a moment,” he said. “I have sent for them.”
“I shall breathe more freely when I am in the saddle and well away from here,” I answered. “There is a fellow back yonder who is longing to assassinate both of us.”
“Our host?” and he laughed lightly. “I noticed him. He is like all the others—they would all jump to assassinate us, if they dared.”
“This one looked particularly wolfish.”
“They are all wolfish, and like the wolf arrant cowards, save when they hunt in pack.”