My faith! but he had, and used them well. With his face pressed against the boards he stared through a crack like a truant child at a peepshow, his teeth clenched and bared, his eyes narrowed, his breath coming in little short gasps. A faint grin was on his face, a spasm of excited emotion rather than of merriment. I have since seen the same look on gamesters' faces when a fortune hung on the fall of the dice and to lose was ruin. But at that time it was new to me, and I stood back a little, watching him curiously.
Here a loaf, there a bone, and back to the cage of The Four Nations came Jehan Flemalle. Nothing remained except the wolves' meat, and straddling his legs a yard or two from the den, he jeered their hunger.
"Hey! Burgundy! Hey! Spain!" he cried, snapping his fat fingers on either side his head while the starving brutes raced howling up and down the cage, pressing their lean flanks against the bars. "Yap and yowl, my sons, yap and yowl! Dine to-day like fed lords, and to-morrow go a-hunting for yourselves, my little ones! An open door, and France in your jaws. France, do you hear?" and he clicked his tongue "France! France! May you find him sweet!"
("You hear for yourself," said I, touching Monseigneur a second time, "are you satisfied, now?" "Peace, fool," answered Monseigneur, "how can I hear if you chatter like a daw?")
"All France by the throat to tear and nuzzle; God! I would I were a wolf and one of you, if only for an hour! But yapping and yowling are not enough, my children, you must jump for your dinner, jump at the throat of the man who gibes your hunger, and pin him with your fangs. Up he'll come, dragging his lame foot in the dust, dragging it thus, thus, thus, up he'll come, smirking and jeering, ay, jeering, and the Devil waiting for him behind the jowl of The Four Nations. Ah ha! he'll say, fret and fume, curs! You'd tear France, would you? Bah! France is not afraid! and he'll snap his fingers as I do. And you, my sons, what will you do? So! So! that is your answer is it? You'll jump for his throat, will you? Good, Burgundy, Good! down on your belly, boy; flatter, flatter, and get the grip of your claws home for the spring; now, one, two, three——Christus!"
In the half-gloom Monseigneur's hand caught mine, and drew me forward imperiously. Above 7the grumbling mumble of the feeding brutes had risen the howling of the wolves, sinking at last to a sharp, yap, yap, yap, broken by a dog-like, complaining whine. Then, as Jehan Flemalle marked time at the last there was an instant's silence, and a rasping crash followed by a deep-chested, hoarse baying like that of hounds on a trail.
"My God!" I cried, "they are loose!"
"I hope so," answered Monseigneur huskily; "they ought to be, for I filed the bars myself last night."
"But there will be murder done?"
"Justice, not murder. Am I a man to do things by halves? Be quiet, and let me look, for this is very curious, much more curious than if Tristan had hanged him. Hanging is common, but I never saw a man die in this way before."