Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/322

310 Tignonville an instant with his lowering eye—“and the preaching fool with you, get arms and mount! You have never played aught but the woman yet; but play me false now, or look aside but a foot from the path I bid you take, and you thwart me no more, Monsieur! And you, Madame,” he continued, turning to the Countess, who stood bewildered at one of the doors, the Provost’s daughter clinging and weeping about her, “you have three minutes to get your women to horse! See you, if you please, that they take no longer!”

She found her voice with difficulty. “And this child?” she said. “She is in my care.”

“Bring her,” he muttered with a scowl of impatience. And then, raising his voice as he turned on the terrified gang of hostlers and inn servants who stood gaping round him, “Go help!” he thundered. “Go help! And quickly!” he added, his face growing a shade darker as a second bell began to toll from a neighbouring tower, and the confused babel in the Place Ste.-Croix settled into a dull roar of “''Sacrilège! sacrilège!''”—“Hasten!”

Fortunately it had been his first intention to go to the Council attended by the whole of his troop; and eight horses stood saddled in the stalls. Others were hastily pulled out and bridled, and the women were mounted. La Tribe, at a look from Tavannes, took behind him the Provost’s daughter, who was helpless with terror. Between the suddenness of the alarm, the uproar without, and the panic within, none but a man whose people served him at a nod and dreaded his very gesture could have got his party mounted in time. Javette would fain have swooned, but she dared not. Tignonville would fain have questioned, but he shrank from the venture. The Countess would fain have said something, but she forced herself to obey and no more. Even so the confusion in the courtyard, the mingling of horses and men and trappings and saddle-bags,