“No, recorder,” said the captain, “he has barked, but he has not desired to murder. I saw the light, too, and he fired in the air to give the alarm.”
In answer to the sentinel’s cries, several lights appeared above the walls; numerous precipitate steps, and a great clang of arms were heard in the court At last, Master Laramée, a helmet on his head and his breast armed with a cuirass, appeared at one of the embrasures of the gate.
“In the name of God, what do you want?” cried he. “Is this the time, pray, to come here and trouble good people who are keeping Christmas?”
“We have an order from the king which we come to put into execution,” said the recorder, “and I—”
“I have some wine left yet in my glass, recorder; good evening, I am going to empty it,” said Laramée, “only, remember the bulls, and know that a musket-ball reaches farther than their horns. So, now, good-night, recorder!” “Think well on what you are going to do, insolent scoundrel,” said Captain Georges; “you are not dealing this time with a wet hen of a recorder, but with a fight-ing-cock, who has a hard beak and sharp spurs, I warn you.”
“The fact is, Master Isnard,” said the clerk, humbly, to the recorder, “we are to this soldier what a pumpkin is to an artillery ball.”
The recorder, already very much offended by the captain’s comparison, rudely repulsed the clerk, and, addressing Laramée with great importance, said:
“You have this time, at your door, the right and the power, the hand and the sword of justice. So, majordomo, I order you to open and to lower the bridge.”
A well-known voice interrupted the recorder; it was that of Raimond V., who had been informed of the arrival of the captain. Escorted by Laramée, who carried a torch, the old gentleman appeared erect upon the little platform that formed the entablature of the gate masked by the drawbridge.
The fluctuating light of the torch threw red reflections on the group of soldiers, and shone upon their steel collars and iron head-pieces; half of the scene being in the shade or lighted by the rays of the moon.