"Your pardon, Monsieur La Mothe," said Hugues. "You are a gentleman, but I am only a servant," and in his excitement La Mothe never paused to ask himself why Hugues should so classify a hedge minstrel of the Duchy of Lackeverything. "It is a fine thing, no doubt, to die for your honour, but what have I to do with honour? Life is life. The boy, on what terms?"
"Your lives. And you gain nothing by refusing. The boy is ours in any case."
"Never," said La Mothe, struggling to shake off the restraining hand that pinned him, helpless, half behind the doorpost. "Never while I live."
"Just so," answered Hugues, tightening his grasp; "not while you live. But afterwards? and what better are we then, or the Dauphin either? Give me three minutes, monsieur, to persuade him, just three minutes," and in La Mothe's ear he whispered, "For God's sake be quiet or you will ruin us all."
"Three minutes? Play me no tricks, my man."
"But, monsieur," and Hugues' voice was a whine as he spoke. "What trick is possible? You are a dozen, we three or four. And are we not caught like rats in a pit?"
"Like rats! You have said the word! Take your three minutes, rat, and don't forget that like rats we'll kill you."
Urging his point vehemently, pleadingly, and with every plausible argument at his command, but never slackening his grip, Hugues drew La Mothe a yard or two into the blackened ruin. There he held him with a wary eye to a possible surprise. Blaise and Marcel were on the upper floor and only La Follette was in sight, standing guard at the stair-head.
"Listen," he said. "Monseigneur is dearer to me than to you. Do you think I would give up one hair of him while I live, I, who sleep at his door of nights? Never, not one hair! But between us we may save him yet. Shake your head, curse me for a coward, for a scoundrel, try to throw me off, strike me if you like. Yes, yes," he insisted, raising his voice, "it is our lives; why lose our lives for nothing?" Then, in a whisper, "They will give the alarm from the fields; it is only a mile to Amboise——"
"But it is a mile—a mile to go, a mile to come back——"