"Carried off!" The thin figure wavered as if struck by a cold breath. "Carried off!" he repeated, laying his hand on the back of the chair.
"By a band of the Black Seigneur's men! His lordship, the Marquis, they left behind bound and secured, but the Lady Elise they took with them."
For some time his Excellency said nothing; like a ghost of himself, leaned hard against his support and looked at the trooper.
"But how could it have happened?" at length in a voice, low, intense, he inquired. "Monsieur le Commandant! The guard—you—all are alive?"
Stumblingly, as best he could, the soldier explained, and when he had done, his Excellency made no sign that he had heard.
"Monsieur le Commandant further ordered me to say he had no doubt he would return with the Lady Elise," added the messenger hastily.
"Monsieur le Commandant!" The Governor's eyes suddenly blazed; swiftly he put question after question, and, having probed to the core the consistency of the tale, with a gesture, brusk and contemptuous, dismissed the bearer.
But whatever feeling the lord of the Mount might entertain toward his chief officer, no course at the moment seemed open save to await the return of that person and the Marquis. So, curbing his impatience as best he might, his Excellency kept vigil; and not alone! Tidings of what had happened spread at the top of the rock; sifted through closed gates and thick walls into the town. The late arrival at the Mount of the lords and ladies, companions of the Governor's daughter for the day, but added to the questionings of the multitude. All night life and expectancy reigned; lights gleamed from high places; responded in low ones.
"Is it true, my dear, what we hear about the Lady Elise?" the landlady of the inn on the Mount near the strand called out to a stalwart, dark young woman, hurrying down the narrow way shortly after the Paris contingent had gone up.
"I've heard no more than you have," came the curt answer of this person—none other than Nanette—who carried a small bundle and seemed anxious to move on.