“Come on, ye thieving loons! Come on!”
It was a plain invitation; yet they misunderstood it so utterly as to take to their heels, with Hans after them, he shouting “Stop thieves!” and they howling with fear and pain as they ran.
CHAPTER XLI
Denys, placed in the middle of his companions, lest he should be so mad as attempt escape was carried off in an agony of grief and remorse. For his sake Gerard had abandoned the German route to Rome; and what was his reward? left all alone in the centre of Burgundy. This was the thought which maddened Denys most, and made him now rave at heaven and earth, now fall into a gloomy silence so savage and sinister that it was deemed prudent to disarm him. They caught up their leader just outside the town, and the whole cavalcade drew up and baited at the “Tete d'Or.”
The young landlady, though much occupied with the count, and still more with the bastard, caught sight of Denys, and asked him somewhat anxiously what had become of his young companion?
Denys, with a burst of grief, told her all, and prayed her to send after Gerard. “Now he is parted from me, he will maybe listen to my rede,” said he; “poor wretch, he loves not solitude.”
The landlady gave a toss of her head. “I trow I have been somewhat over-kind already,” said she, and turned rather red.
“You will not?”
“Not I.”