‘No; to your kennel!’ I replied, with a look which sent him a yard backwards, though the railings were between us. And I wiped my blade carefully, standing a little apart. For—well, I could understand it—it was one of those moments when a man is not popular. Those who had come with me from the eating-house eyed me askance, and turned their backs when I drew nearer; and those who had joined us and obtained admission were scarcely more polite.
But I was not to be outdone in SANG FROID. I cocked my hat, and drawing my cloak over my shoulders, went out with a swagger which drove the curs from the gate before I came within a dozen paces of it. The rascals outside fell back as quickly, and in a moment I was in the street. Another moment and I should have been clear of the place and free to lie by for a while—when, without warning, a scurry took place round me. The crowd fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn a dozen of the Cardinal’s guards closed round me.
I had some acquaintance with the officer in command, and he saluted me civilly.
‘This is a bad business, M. de Berault,’ he said. ‘The man is dead they tell me.’
‘Neither dying nor dead,’ I answered lightly. ‘If that be all you may go home again.’
‘With you,’ he replied, with a grin, ‘certainly. And as it rains, the sooner the better. I must ask you for your sword, I am afraid.’
‘Take it,’ I said, with the philosophy which never deserts me. ‘But the man will not die.’
‘I hope that may avail you,’ he answered in a tone I did not like. ‘Left wheel, my friends! To the Chatelet! March!’
‘There are worse places,’ I said, and resigned myself to fate. After all, I had been in a prison before, and learned that only one jail lets no prisoner escape.
But when I found that my friend’s orders were to hand me over to the watch, and that I was to be confined like any common jail-bird caught cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my heart sank. If I could get speech with the Cardinal, all would probably be well; but if I failed in this, or if the case came before him in strange guise, or if he were in a hard mood himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict said, death!