d him up. The miscreant fell half across the opening in the floor.
One foot, hanging down, almost touched the running water.

Detricand had his foe at his mercy. There was the first inclination to
drop him into the stream, but that was put away as quickly as it came.
He gave the wretch a sudden twist, pulling him clear of the hole, and
wrenched the knife from his fingers at the same moment.

"Now, monsieur," said he, feeling for a light, "now we'll have a look at
you."

The figure lay quiet beneath him. The nervous strength was gone, the
body was limp, the breathing was laboured. The light flared. Detricand
held it down, and there was revealed the haggard, malicious face of
Olivier Delagarde.

"So, monsieur the traitor," said Detricand--"so you'd be a murderer
too--eh?"

The old man mumbled an oath.

"Hand of the devil," continued Detricand, "was there ever a greater
beast than you! I held my tongue about you these eleven years past,
I held it yesterday and saved your paltry life, and you'd repay me by
stabbing me in the dark--in a fine old-fashioned way too, with your
trap-doors, and blown-out candle, and Italian tricks--"

He held the candle down near the white beard as though he would singe
it.

"Come, sit up against the wall there and let me look at you."

Cringing, the old man drew himself over to the wall. Detricand, seating
himself in a chair, held the candle up before him.

After a moment he said: "What I want to know is, how could a low-flying
cormorant like you beget a gull of the cliffs like Maitre Ranulph?"

The old man did not answer, but sat blinking with malignant yet fearful
eyes at Detricand, who continued: "What did you come back for? Why
didn't you stay dead? Ranulph had a name as clean as a piece of paper
from the mill, and he can't write it now without turning sick, because
it's the same name as yours. You're the choice blackamoor of creation,
aren't you? Now what have you got to say?"

"Let me go," whined the old man with the white beard. "Let me go,
monsieur. Don't send me to prison."

Detricand stirred him with his foot, as one might a pile of dirt.

"Listen," said he. "In the Vier Marchi they're cutting off the ear of
a man and nailing it to a post, because he ill-used a cow. What do you
suppose they'd do to you, if I took you down there and told them it
was through you Rullecour landed, and that you'd have seen them all
murdered--eh, maitre cormorant?"

The old man crawled to