"Then begone."
* * * * *
"Couldst hear no more than that, Peter? Nothing save a few words of angry reproach against the man when De Maupas's voice rang highest?"
"No, sir. I could get no nearer, for De Maupas's esquire, Arnaud, paced to and fro outside, doubtless by his master's orders. Most of the time the two spake only of the tournament, though once I feel sure they talked of Sir John, but they dropped their voices and only formless words reached my ears."
"Ah! Then I fear it behoves us to find out," cried Edgar in a decided tone. "We cannot afford to go on like this, Peter. The Wolsingham ladies are becoming most anxious, and if we cannot soon get news, we must acquaint the earl of the truth and implore his aid, though I fear it will bring us little comfort. Ye say ye know where this man Baulch lives?"
"Yes, he lives at a low inn in the lowest and most rascally quarter of the town."
"Good! 'Tis the better for our purpose. At nightfall, Peter, I must visit this inn, and see what stratagem or the sword will accomplish. Tell me how I may find it, and then be off and get me some peasant's clothing, old and soiled with use, and have it ready an hour or two before the gates are closed."
At the time appointed Peter produced a bundle of clothing, and Edgar was soon well disguised as a young countryman on a visit to the town to make his purchases. The clothing was somewhat malodorous, but as this added considerably to the realistic effect, Edgar recked little of that. His own sword was far too well made and well finished to be taken, so Peter obtained for him the least pretentious amongst those carried by Sir John's men-at-arms. This was buckled on in an awkward and clumsy manner, so as to give as unwarlike an air to a warlike weapon as possible.
Foreseeing the possibility of a fight in a locality of such unsavoury reputation, Edgar took the precaution to don his light flexible shirt of steel mail before putting on the peasant's garments, and to have a dagger concealed beneath his clothes ready to hand in case of an attack too sudden and at too close quarters to allow him to draw his sword.
It was a few minutes short of the hour at which the gates of the city closed when, as a peasant, he rapped loudly at the door of a low-lying, rambling, single-story structure overlooking the river Garonne. The street was in complete darkness, save for the dim light emitted through the shuttered windows of one or two of the hovels and crazy dwellings which huddled together along each side of the narrow roadway.