But Gaspard's eye and voice checked the troopers. He held in his hand the gold trinket. “I have no quarrel with you. This is the passport of your leader, the Duke. I show it to you, and if you are questioned about this day's work you can reply that you took your orders from him who carried Guise's jewel. Go your ways back to Paris if you would avoid trouble.”
Two of the men seemed to waver, but the maddened cry of the priest detained them. “They seek to murder me,” he screamed. “Would you desert God's Church and burn in torment for ever?” He hurled himself on Gaspard, who caught his wrist so that the knife tinkled on the high road while the man overbalanced himself and fell. The next second the mellay had begun.
It did not last long. The troopers were heavy fellows, cumbrously armed, who, even with numbers on their side, stood little chance against two swift swordsmen, who had been trained to fight together against odds. One Gaspard pulled from the saddle so that he lay senseless on the ground. One Champernoun felled with a sword cut of which no morion could break the force. The two others turned tail and fled, and the last seen of them was a dust cloud on the road to Paris.
Gaspard had not drawn his sword. They stood by the bridge of a little river, and he flung Guise's jewel far into its lilied waters.
“A useful bauble,” he smiled, “but its purpose is served.”
The priest stood in the dust, with furious eyes burning in an ashen face.
“What will you do with me?”
“This has been your day of triumph, father. I would round it off worthily by helping you to a martyr's crown. Gawain,” and he turned to his companion, “go up the road and fetch me the rope which binds the minister.”
The runaway was feeding peaceably by the highway. Champernoun cut the old man's bonds, and laid him fainting on the grass. He brought back with him a length of stout cord.
“Let the brute live,” he said. “Duck him and truss him up, but don't dirty your hands with him. I'd as lief kill a woman as a monk.”