Rabecque poured abuse upon him, until for very lack of words he was forced to cease, then, with a final bark of contempt, he went to recover his sword, which had been flung into a corner of the room. He was stooping in the act, when a quick step rang behind him on the threshold, an angry voice harsh and metallic pronounced his name:
“Rebecque!”
The sword clattered from Rabecque’s hand suddenly gone nerveless—nerveless with sheer joy, all else forgotten in the perception that there, safe and sound, stood his beloved master.
“Monsieur!” he cried, and the tears welled up to the rough servant’s eyes. “Monsieur!” he cried again, and then with the tears streaming down his cheeks, sallow and wrinkled as parchment, “Oh, thank God!” he blubbered. “Thank God!”
“For what?” asked Garnache, coming forward, a scowl like a thunder-cloud upon his brow. “Where is the coach, where the troopers? Where is mademoiselle? Answer me!”
He caught Rabecque’s wrist in a grip that threatened to snap it. His face was livid, his eyes aflame.
“They—they—” stammered Rabecque. He had not the courage to tell the thing that had happened. He feared Garnache would strike him dead.
And then out of his terror he gathered an odd daring. He spoke to Garnache as never he had dreamt to speak to him, and it may well be that by his tone and by what he said he saved his life just then.
“You fool,” he cried to him. “I told you to be on your guard. I warned you to go warily. But you would not heed me. You know better than Rabecque. You would have your way. You must go a-brawling. And they duped you, they fooled you to the very top of their bent, monsieur.”
Garnache dropped the servant’s hand and stood back a pace. That counter-blast of passion and that plain speaking from a quarter so unexpected served, in part at least, to sober him. He understood the thing that had happened, the thing that already he suspected must have happened; but he understood too that he alone was to blame for it—he and his cursed temper.