“Indeed—indeed, monsieur—” he was protesting, when I cut him short.
“You cannot be so great a fool but that you must realize that if I tell the King what I know of you, you will be stripped of your ill-gotten gains, and broken on the wheel for a double traitor—a betrayer of your fellow-rebels.”
“But you will not do that, monsieur?” he cried. “It would be unworthy in you.”
At that I laughed in his face. “Heart of God! Are you to be what you please, and do you still expect that men shall be nice in dealing with you? I would do this thing, and, by my faith, Monsieur de Eustache, I will do it, if you compel me!”
He reddened and moved his foot uneasily. Perhaps I did not take the best way with him, after all. I might have confined myself to sowing fear in his heart; that alone might have had the effect I desired; by visiting upon him at the same time the insults I could not repress, I may have aroused his resistance, and excited his desire above all else to thwart me.
“What do you want of me?” he demanded, with a sudden arrogance which almost cast mine into the shade.
“I want you,” said I, deeming the time ripe to make a plain tale of it, “to withdraw your men, and to ride back to Toulouse without Monsieur de Lavedan, there to confess to the Keeper of the Seals that your suspicions were unfounded, and that you have culled evidence that the Vicomte has had no relations with Monsieur the King's brother.”
He looked at me in amazement—amusedly, almost.
“A likely story that to bear to the astute gentlemen in Toulouse,” said he.
“Aye, ma foi, a most likely story,” said I. “When they come to consider the profit that you are losing by not apprehending the Vicomte, and can think of none that you are making, they will have little difficulty in believing you.”