The two men knotted their brows, puzzled. One of them bit his lips and the other growled under his breath and flashed a knowing look at his companion. It was a hint, I knew, that at the first chance they would make the attack together.
The scrivener seemed to consider them as children. He took his soiled cap from his head and flung it on the floor.
“Do you know me now?” he cried. “Have you never heard of ‘Will-o’-the-wisp’?”
As though they had been struck by a club, both men drooped and turned instinctively towards the door. Then they called out loud enough for me to hear, “The highwayman of Tours!”
The scrivener snapped his fingers in the air. Then like a showman he took the dagger by the point. He gave it a twist and sent it spinning towards the floor. It struck and buried itself in the wood, where it stood quivering like a living thing.
“‘The highwayman of Tours!’” he echoed after them. “The only man who ever had the courage to stand before the Abbot of Chalonnes and flaunt him to his face. That dagger there I took from him—with a dozen of his followers at his back. I was the only man in all the country round to meet the Dwarf of Angers—alone—unarmed—in the woods—at night. I killed the Dwarf and threw his body into the waters of the Loire.” He stopped and laughed a long, weird, tormenting laugh that rang through the room like the echo of a ghost. “The man who is my enemy is foredoomed to die!”
A chill crept along my spine. A sullen look spread over the faces of my two captors. They exchanged glances once again and grinned.
“You can’t fool us with talk like that,” said one. “We’re men.”
The scrivener whistled a quick, sharp note and with the ease of a kitten sprang upon the table.
“There is a price upon my head!” he called. Then he pointed to the dagger. “If either of you has the boldness to collect it, let him pluck that weapon from the floor.”