The rattle of the sabots came nearer, the footsteps were now in front of the window. Even as Ranulph was about to knock and call the poor vagrant’s name, the clac-clac stopped, and then there came a sniffing at the shutters as a dog sniffs at the door of a larder. Following the sniffing came a guttural noise of emptiness and desire. Now there was no mistake; it was the half-witted fellow beyond all doubt, and he could help him—Dormy Jamais should help him: he should go and warn the Governor and the soldiers at the Hospital, while he himself would speed to Gorey in search of his father. He would alarm the regiment there at the same time.
He knocked and shouted. Dormy Jamais, frightened, jumped back into the street. Ranulph called again, and yet again, and now at last Dormy recognised the voice.
With a growl of mingled reassurance and hunger, he lifted down the iron bar from the shutters. In a moment Ranulph was outside with two loaves of bread, which he put into Dormy Jamais’s arms. The daft one whinnied with delight.
“What’s o’clock, bread-man?” he asked with a chuckle.
Ranulph gripped his shoulders. “See, Dormy Jamais, I want you to go to the Governor’s house at La Motte, and tell them that the French are coming, that they’re landing at Gorey now. Then to the Hospital and tell the sentry there. Go, Dormy—allez kedainne!”
Dormy Jamais tore at a loaf with his teeth, and crammed a huge crust into his mouth.
“Come, tell me, will you go, Dormy?” the lad asked impatiently.
Dormy Jamais nodded his head, grunted, and, turning on his heel with Ranulph, clattered up the street. The lad sprang ahead of him, and ran swiftly up the Rue d’Egypte, into the Vier Marchi, and on over the Town Hill along the road to Grouville.