The door suddenly flew back on its hinges and banged against the wall. Both men jumped and in my tenseness I jumped with them. They stood with frightened faces looking towards the entrance.
A form appeared—the form of a little man clad in rags, smeared with ink and dirt so that his face was hardly to be seen. His beard was clotted with mire where he had been sleeping in the open. His quills and ink-horn and roll of parchment were gone but he still wore the same curious grin that I had noticed earlier in the day.
With one skip he was in the middle of the room. He clapped the fellow with the injured hand roundly on the back and cried in a voice of glee.
“Well, I see you have him at last!”
CHAPTER X
THE HIGHWAYMAN OF TOURS
The three of us turned with amazement on our faces. Before a word was spoken the scrivener bounded clear across the room. He came to a stop before the table and took the dagger in his hand. Then he faced us.
“Now,” said he, “I should like to know who gave you permission to befoul my house?”
He spoke in a high, commanding key. One of the fellows shifted slowly to the side of the room. The other looked uneasily about. The scrivener, who held his head, pointed at each of them in turn with the dagger.
“Do you know, my gentles,” he demanded in a terrible voice, “who I am?”