Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/157

Rh to unlock, to draw back the bolts, to draw back the door which opened outwards; their numbers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them. When they burst in at last, with a roar of “To the river! To the river!”—burst in a rush of struggling shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him standing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, his arms folded. And the sight of the passive figure for a moment stayed them.

“Say your prayers, child of Satan!” cried the leader, waving his weapon. “We give you one minute!”

“Ay, one minute!” his followers chimed in. “Be ready!”

“You would murder me?” he said with dignity. And when they shouted assent, “Good!” he answered. “It is between you and M. de Biron, whose guest I am. But”—with a glance which passed round the ring of glaring eyes and working features—“I would leave a last word for some one. Is there any one here who values a safe-conduct from the King? ’Tis for two men coming and going for a fortnight.” And he held up a slip of paper.

The leader cried, “To hell with his safe-conduct! Say your prayers!”

But all were not of his mind. On one or two of the savage faces—the faces, for the most part, of honest men maddened by their wrongs—flashed an avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, to slay, to kill—and to go safe! For some minds such a thing has an invincible fascination. A man thrust himself forward.

“Ay, I’ll have it!” he cried. “Give it here!”

“It is yours,” Count Hannibal answered, “if you will carry ten words to Marshal Tavannes—when I am gone.”

The man’s neighbour laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“And Marshal Tavannes will pay you finely,” he said.

But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off the hand.