But one of the halberdiers, throwing himself against the wall, pricked the animal so sharply in the nose and the shoulder, that the bull dared not make another attack, and bounded off into the middle of the court.
Seeing the courage of the halberdier, the baron cried:
“Have no fear, my brave fellow, you shall have ten francs to drink his health, and I will furnish the wine gratis.”
Then addressing the invisible Larmaée, the old gentleman ordered: “Tell the shepherd to send his dogs, and drive these bulls back into the stable. The dance of the recorder and the clerk has lasted long enough.”
The baron had hardly finished speaking, when three shepherd dogs of large size came out of a half-open door and ran straight after the bulls. After a few flourishes, the animals ended the farce by galloping into the stable, the magazine of arms and artillery of Maison-Forte, as the treacherous sign-board had announced.
The recorder and his clerk, seeing themselves delivered from danger, still did not dare descend from their impregnable position. In vain Laramée, bearing two glasses of wine on a silver plate, came offering the stirrup-cup from the baron, and telling them, what was true, that the bridge had been replaced, and their horses and mules were waiting for them outside.
“I go from here only that my clerk may draw up an official statement of the grievous outrage by which the baron, your master, has rendered himself amenable,” cried the recorder, almost breathless, wiping the sweat from his brow, which literally ran with water, in spite of the cold weather. “Perhaps you are reserving some other bad treatment for us, but the governor, and if necessary the cardinal himself, will avenge me, and on my oath, there shall not remain one stone on another of this accursed house—may Satan confound it—”
Raimond V., holding in his hand a long hunting-whip, descended into the court, gave the ten francs to the halberdier who had so bravely combatted the bull, and went up to the tree from which the recorder was fulminating his threats.
“What is that you say, you scoundrel?” said the baron, cracking his whip.
“I say,” shouted the recorder, “I say that the marshal will not leave this offence unpunished, and that on my arrival in Marseilles, I will tell him all, I—”