They fell back before him like sheep, leaving a broad way right into the hotel, through which he passed, stern and self-possessed. The Sicilian watched him curiously, with twitching lips.
"There goes a brave man," whispered one of the Palermitans to the French officer. "But his days are numbered."
The Frenchman gazed at the Sicilian and nodded. There was death in his face.
CHAPTER IX
'Ah! why should love, like men in drinking songs,
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of earth?'
Lord St. Maurice walked straight into his room without perceiving that it was already occupied. He flung his hat into a corner, and himself into an easy-chair, with an exclamation which was decidedly unparliamentary.
"D—n!" he muttered.
"That's a lively greeting," remarked a voice from the other end of the room.
He looked quickly up. A tall figure loomed out of the shadows of the apartment, and presently resolved itself into the figure of a man with his hands in his pockets, and a huge meerschaum pipe in his mouth.