The Sword of Gideon

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"And so also will I, monsieur. Let me but get my coat and whinyard, and I will be with you. But an instant, monsieur. But an instant."

"Nay," Bevill called, even as the man sped towards the great wooden staircase that led out of the courtyard up to the balconies outside the various floors; "nay, stay here, I command you. Stay here by your mistress to whom your service is due. I need no assistance. It is man to man, as," he muttered grimly through set teeth, "it was two years ago in England."

Then, seeing that Joseph had disappeared up the stairs, Bevill went swiftly out of the courtyard and under the arch into the street.

But he did not know that, as he did so, another man had followed in his footsteps.

A man who, almost ere he was outside the entrance, had softly pushed open the stable door and then, after looking round stealthily to make sure that he was not observed, had come out himself, while thrusting into the folds of his coarse shirt something that gleamed for an instant in the rays of the lanthorn.

"What was it he said?" this man muttered to himself in a hoarse, raucous voice. "What? I could not hear all--yet enough. A Dutchman! One of us--who has joined these accursed French as a spy on us. On us--ach! Himmel! On us, his countrymen. Ha! Let me but find him, and he spies no more in this world."

And now this man was also in the place--the deserted place in which glittered but one or two oil lamps hung on chains stretched across the road, yet which was well lighted now by a late risen moon that was in her third quarter--a moon that was topping now the pointed, crenellated roofs of the old houses and flooding the whole space with its beams. By this light the man saw that he was not yet too late.

"'He's mine,' the watcher whispered to himself."

He saw the tall form of Bevill turning away from the door of "Le Prince d'Orange," and understood that the man, who had in his hearing denounced the other as a spy, had been to see if the latter had entered the inn. He saw, too, by looking up the one long street that led from the place, that the denouncer paused for a moment and then went swiftly along it. Seeing this, he understood, and himself followed swiftly, while now and again putting his hand in his breast as though to make sure of what was hidden there.