The names set the rabble howling. Every eye was on the speaker.
Gaspard commanded silence. “I will tell you. The Huguenots are cunning as foxes. They planned this very day to seize the King and make themselves masters of France. They have copied your badge,” and he glanced towards his left arm. “Thousands of them are waiting for revenge, and before it is full day they will be on you. You will not know them, you will take them for your friends, and you will have your throats cut before you find out your error.”
A crowd may be wolves one moment and chickens the next, for cruelty and fear are cousins. A shiver of apprehension went through the soberer part. One drunkard who shouted was clubbed on the head by his neighbour. Gaspard saw his chance.
“My word to you—the Duke's word—is to forestall this devilry. Follow me, and strike down every band of white-badged Huguenots. For among them be sure is the cub of Navarre.”
It was the leadership which the masterless men wanted. Fifty swords were raised, and a shout went up which shook the windows of that lodging where even now Teligny was being done to death. With the two horsemen at their head the rabble poured westwards towards the Rue d'Arbre Sec and the Louvre, for there in the vicinity of the Palace were the likeliest coverts.
“Now Heaven send us Petrucci,” said Gaspard. “Would that the Little Man had been alive and with us! This would have been a ruse after his own heart.”
“I think the great Conde would have specially misliked yon monk,” said the Englishman.
“Patience, Gawain. One foe at a time. My heart tells me that you will get your priest.”
The streets, still dim in the dawn, were thickly carpeted with dead. The mob kicked and befouled the bodies, and the bravos in sheer wantonness spiked them with their swords. There were women there, and children, lying twisted on the causeway. Once a fugitive darted out of an entry, to be brought down by a butcher's axe.
“I have never seen worse in the Indies,” and Champernoun shivered. “My stomach turns. For heaven's sake let us ride down this rabble!”