"Save me--save me!" she cried out in an agony of fear.
"Kill--kill--lay out the others--take your gold--the gold I found for you--the girl for me!"
All were now on their feet. Chardon was watching his chief. Chanot's face was pale as wood ash, but there was on it a kind of joy--the strength of a new resolve.
"To the door--Leduc, and you, Violet," he ordered, "wait for me outside. I have something which will satisfy you!"
The men moved uncertainly away. Things were turning out strangely. Was Chanot turning traitor? If so--they would see. But the power of the stronger will was upon them, and they were soon in the garden. They came out on a dark, shadowy world, in which all things seemed of the same colour, but scented of flowers and the full bloom of the tilleul, the bee-haunted lime tree of the south.
Above them they heard the irregular rattle of musketry, and the din of combat. A fierce light beat upon the tree-tops at intervals. No fire could pierce like that. The gleam was far too steady. It looked like the beam of an electric arc-lamp, but how could the Jesuit professors of St. André have come into possession of such a thing?
Within the house of Gobelet they heard the voice of Matteo uplifted.
"Kill--kill--you have turned soft, I shall kill you, Chanot. Matteo of Arquà is not to be cheated!"
Leduc and Violet looked back through the door out of which they had come. The hall was dusk, but a light was burning somewhere out of sight. They could see a couple emerge out of the passage which led to the study--Chanot pushed the Arquàn in front of him. The face of the chief was calm, but of a ghastly pallor--his lips almost disappearing, so firmly were they set. His blue eyes had the dull glitter of lapis lazuli, or rather of malachite--green rather than blue. But they were not good to see. Death looked out of them, and chilled the marrow of Leduc and Violet. Not for the world would they have crossed the will of Chanot at that moment.
They could see Chardon shutting the door of the study from within, and guessed that he was left there on guard, but they could not hear Chanot's courteous last words of excuse for Matteo, "I fear this gentleman is ill. He is from Italy and troubled with fever. He will be better outside. I will conduct him."