Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/179

Rh through which the measured tramp of a body of men came heavily to the ear. “Do you hear, Monsieur? Do you understand? As it was yesterday it is to-day! They killed the President La Place this morning! And they are searching! They are still searching! The river is not yet full, nor the gibbet glutted! I have but to open that window and denounce you, and your life would hang by no stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they chase through the streets!”

The younger man had risen also. He stood confronting Tavannes, the cowl fallen back from his face, his eyes dilated.

“You think to frighten me!” he cried. “You think that I am craven enough to sacrifice her to save myself. You”

“You were craven enough to draw back yesterday, when you stood at this window and waited for death!” Count Hannibal answered brutally. “You flinched then, and may flinch again!”

“Try me!” Tignonville retorted, trembling with passion. “Try me!” And then, as the other stared at him and made no movement, “But you dare not!” he cried. “You dare not!”

“No?”

“No! For if I die you lose her!” Tignonville replied in a voice of triumph. “Ha, ha! I touch you there!” he continued. “You dare not, for my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout and point to the window”—and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the other’s gesture—“but my safety is more to you than to me! And ’twill end there!”

“You believe that?”

“I know it!”

In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window. He