‘Do you mean to kidnap me?’ I replied, in a rage.
But behind the rage was something else—I will not call it terror, for the brave feel no terror but it was near akin to it. I had had to do with rough men all my life, but there was a grimness and truculence in the aspect of these three that shook me. When I thought of the dark paths and narrow lanes and cliff sides we must traverse, whichever road we took, I trembled.
‘Kidnap you, Monsieur?’ he answered, with an every-day air. ‘That is as you please to call it. One thing is certain, however,’ he continued, maliciously touching an arquebuss which he had brought out, and set upright against a chair while I was at the door; if you attempt the slightest resistance, we shall know how to put an end to it, either here or on the road.’
I drew a deep breath, the very imminence of the danger restoring me to the use of my faculties. I changed my tone and laughed aloud.
‘So that is your plan, is it?’ I said. ‘The sooner we start the better, then. And the sooner I see Auch and your back turned, the more I shall be pleased.’
He rose. ‘After you, Monsieur,’ he said.
I could not restrain a slight shiver. His new-born politeness alarmed me more than his threats. I knew the man and his ways, and I was sure that it boded ill to me.
But I had no pistols, and only my sword and knife, and I knew that resistance at this point must be worse than vain. I went out jauntily, therefore, the landlord coming after me with my saddle and bags.
The street was empty, save for the two waiting horsemen who sat in their saddles looking doggedly before them, The sun had not yet risen, the air was raw. The sky was grey, cloudy, and cold. My thoughts flew back to the morning on which I had found the sachet—at that very spot, almost at that very hour, and for a moment I grew warm again at the thought of the little packet I carried in my boot. But the landlord’s dry manner, the sullen silence of his two companions, whose eyes steadily refused to meet mine, chilled me again. For an instant the impulse to refuse to mount, to refuse to go, was almost irresistible; then, knowing the madness of such a course, which might, and probably would, give the men the chance they desired, I crushed it down and went slowly to my stirrup.
‘I wonder you do not want my sword,’ I said by way of sarcasm, as I swung myself up.