"Ay, but it is not Tavannes," the man in black answered with a grimace. "And he rules here today."
"Fool!" Pezelay retorted. "He has not twenty with him. Do you do as I say, and leave the rest to heaven!"
"And to you, good master?" the other answered. "For it is not all you are going to do," he continued with a grin, "that you have told me. Well, so be it! I'll do my part, but I wish we were in Paris. Ste. Genevieve is ever kind to her servants."
CHAPTER XXIX.
[THE ESCAPE.]
In a small back room on the second floor of the inn at Angers, a mean, dingy room which looked into a narrow lane, and commanded no prospect more informing than a blind wall, two men sat, fretting; or, rather, one man sat, his chin resting on his hand, while his companion, less patient or more sanguine, strode ceaselessly to and fro. In the first despair of capture--for they were prisoners--they had made up their minds to the worst, and the slow hours of two days had passed over their heads without kindling more than a faint spark of hope in their breasts. But when they had been taken out and forced to mount and ride--at first with feet tied to the horses' girths--they had let the change, the movement, and the open air fan the flame. They had muttered a word to one another, they had wondered, they had reasoned. And though the silence of their guards--from whose sour vigilance the keenest question drew no response--seemed of ill-omen, and, taken with their knowledge of the man into whose hands they had fallen, should have quenched the spark, these two, having special reasons, the one the buoyancy of youth, the other the faith of an enthusiast, cherished the flame. In the breast of one indeed it had blazed into a confidence so arrogant that he now took all for granted, and was not content.
"It is easy for you to say, 'Patience!'" he cried, as he walked the floor in a fever. "You stand to lose no more than your life, and if you escape go free at all points! But he has robbed me of more than life! Of my love, and my self-respect, curse him! He has worsted me not once, but twice and thrice! And if he lets me go now, dismissing me with my life, I shall--I shall kill him!" he concluded, through his teeth.
"You are hard to please!"
"I shall kill him!"
"That were to fall still lower!" the minister answered, gravely regarding him. "I would, M. de Tignonville, you remembered that you are not yet out of jeopardy. Such a frame of mind as yours is no good preparation for death, let me tell you!"