“There is reason in what you say,” he acknowledged; “but I am in haste. I cannot wait while you go in search of a friend.”
“Why then,” he answered, with a careless laugh, “I must raise one from the dead.”
Both stared at him. Was he mad? Had the fever touched his brain? Was that healthy colour but the brand of a malady that rendered him delirious?
“Dieu! How you stare!” he continued, laughing in their faces. “You shall see something to compensate you for your journey, messieurs. I have learnt some odd tricks in Italy; they are a curious people beyond the Alps. What did you say was the name of the man the Queen had sent from Paris?—he who lies at the bottom of the moat of Condillac?”
“Let there be an end to this jesting,” growled Marius. “On guard, Monsieur le Marquis!”
“Patience! patience!” Florimond implored him. “You shall have your way with me, I promise you. But of your charity, messieurs, tell me first the name of that man.”
“It was Garnache,” said Fortunio, “and if the information will serve you, it was I who slew him.”
“You?” cried Florimond. “Tell me of it, I beg you.”
“Do you fool us?” questioned Marius in a rage that overmastered his astonishment, his growing suspicion that here all was not quite as it seemed.
“Fool you? But no. I do but wish to show you something that I learned in Italy. Tell me how you slew him, Monsieur le Capitaine.”