Basterga wheeled from him to the other. "So!" he said. "You have something to tell me, it seems?" And taking the trembling Louis by the arm, he drew him aside, a few paces from the approach of the bridge. In doing this he hung a moment searching the bridge and the farther bank with a keen gaze. He knew, and for some hours had known, on what a narrow edge of peril he stood, and that only Blondel's influence protected him from arrest. Yet he had returned: he had not hesitated to put his head again into the lion's mouth. Still if Louis' words meant that certain arrest awaited him, he was not too proud to save himself.
He could discern no officers on the bridge, and satisfied on the point of immediate danger, he turned to his shivering ally. "Well, what is it?" he said. "Speak!"
"I'll tell you the truth," Louis gabbled.
"You had better!" Basterga replied, in a tone that meant much more than he said. "Or you will find me worse to deal with than yonder hot-head! I will answer for that."
"Messer Blondel has been at the house," Louis murmured glibly, his mind centred on the question how much he should tell. "Last night and again this morning. He has been closeted with Anne and Mercier. And there has been some talk—of a box or a bottle."
"Were they in my room?" Basterga asked, his brow contracting.
"No, downstairs."
"Did they get—the box or the bottle?" There was a dangerous note in Basterga's voice; and a look in his eyes that scared the lad.
Louis, as his instinct was, lied again, fleeing the more pressing peril. "Not to my knowledge," he said.
"And you?" The scholar eyed him with bland suavity. "You had nothing to do—with all this, I suppose?"