“With this I came to a sudden halt and moved to the middle of the room. There I stood, straining my eyes in the dim light, hoping to find something with which to brain the gang should they come in a bunch. I took hold of the bed and shook it—the posts and back were as solid as a cart body. The chest was worse—neither of them could be whirled around my head as a club, as I had used the chair at Perugia. Next I tried the door, and found it without lock or bolt—in fact it swung open as noiselessly and easily as if it had been greased. The toy pitcher and basin came next—too small even to throw at a cat. It was a case, then, of bare fists and the devil take the hindmost.
“With this clear in my mind, I laid the pitcher on the floor within an inch of the door, so that the edge would strike it if opened, and again raised the window high enough for me to jump through. I could, of course, have dragged the chest across the door, as a girl would have done, put the basin and pitcher on top, and shoved the head-board of the bed against the window-sash—but this I was ashamed to do; and then, again, the whole thing might be a blooming farce—one I would laugh over in the morning.
“The question now arose whether I should get into my clothes, walk boldly down the corridor, and make a break through the kitchen and square room, with the risk of being stabbed in the garden, or whether I should stick it out until morning. Inside, I could choose my fighting ground; outside was a different thing. Then, again, daylight was not far off.
“I decided to hold the fort; slipped into my clothes—all but my coat—packed my knapsack, laid the basin within striking distance of the pitcher, placed the candle and matches close to my hand, stretched myself on the bed, and, strange as it may seem to you, again dropped off to sleep; only to find myself again sitting bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding away like a trip-hammer, my ears wide open.
“More footsteps!—this time in the corridor. I slid out of bed, crept to the door, and pulled myself together. When the pitcher and basin came together with a clink, he would get it behind the ear—all at once—ker-chunk! He was so close now that I heard his fingers feeling around in the dark for the knob. A steady, gentle push with his hand near the key-hole, and he could then steal in without waking me. Whether he smelt me or not I do not know, for I made no sound—not even with my breath—but he came to a dead halt, backed away, rose to his feet and tiptoed down the corridor.
“That settled all sleep for the night, and it was just as well, for the day was breaking—first the gray, pallid light, then the yellow, and then the rose tint. Nothing like a sunrise to put a fellow’s ghosts to flight. So I picked up the basin and pitcher, unhooked my towel, had a wash, finished dressing, leaned out of the window for a while watching the rising sun warm up the little snow peaks one after another, and, shouldering my trap, started along the corridor and so on downstairs.
“The pot-bellied lump of a scoundrel was waiting for me in the square room. He gave me the same keen, scrutinizing look with which he had welcomed me the night before. This time it began with my hair and ended at my boots, which were still muddy from the tramp of the previous evening.
“‘I am sorry, your Excellency,’ he said, ‘but if you had left your shoes outside your door I could have polished them; I was afraid of disturbing you or I should have hunted for them inside.’”
Louis, as he finished, settled his big shoulders back in the chair until it creaked with his weight, and ran his eye around the table waiting for the explosion which he knew would follow. All we could do was to stare helplessly in his face. Le Blanc, who hadn’t drawn a full breath since the painter began, found his voice first.
“And he didn’t intend cutting your throat?” he roared indignantly.