"Well, what in the devil's name brings you here?" he demanded.
The mirthful mood in which he had watched his comrade kneel was already past with Rollo.
"Come outside, and I will tell you," he said, and without making any further explanation or asking for any from Etienne, he strode back through the courtyard of the venta and out into the sunlit road.
A muleteer was passing, sitting sideways on his beast's back as on an easy-chair, and as he went by he offered the two young men to drink out of a leathern goatskin of wine with a courteous wave of the hand. Rollo declined equally courteously.
Then turning to his friend, who still continued to scowl, he said abruptly, "Where is Mortimer?"
"Nay, that I know not—looking for another meal, I suppose," answered the little Frenchman, shrugging his shoulders, one higher than the other.
Rollo glanced at him from under his gloomy brows.
"Nay," he said, "this is serious. I need your help. Do not fail me to-night, and help me to find Mortimer. I had not the smallest intention of intruding upon you. Indeed, but for that maid at the inn, I should never have found you."
"Ah," commented Etienne, half to himself, "so I owe it to that minx, do I? Yes, it is a mistake—so close as that. But no matter; what can I do for you?"
"It is not for myself," Rollo answered, and forthwith in a low voice told his tale, the Frenchman assenting with a nod of the head as each point was made clear to him.