ween two
and six, my lord; therefore to-day. To-day," he repeated in a low
voice; "and by a dozen men at least, Fewer could not move those beams."

"And the object?"

"To prevent our escape."

"But who are they?" I said, looking at him.

"The woman knows," he answered. "We must ask her, my lord."

I assented; and we went back into the house, where it would not have
surprised me if we had found the wretches flown and the nest empty.
But Colet had done his work too well. They were both there, and, in a
moment, at a signal from Boisrueil, were secured and pinioned.
Parabere, hearing the scuffle, came out and would have remonstrated,
but I silenced him with a sharp word; and, despatching La Font with a
couple of discreet men to keep watch in the court that we might not be
surprised, I bade one of the servants throw some fir-cones on the fire.
These, blazing up, filled the squalid room in a moment with a glare of
light, which revealed alike the livid faces of the two prisoners and
the excited looks and dark countenances of my escort.

I bade them put the woman forward first, and addressed her sternly,
telling her that I knew all, and that she would do well to confess;
inasmuch as if she made a clean breast of the matter, I would grant her
her life, and if she did not, she would be the first to die, since I
would hang her were a single shot fired against the house.

The promise found her unmoved, but the threat, uttered in a tone which
showed that I was in earnest, proved more effectual. With an ugly
look, under which my men shrank as if her eye had power to scorch them,
the hag said that she would confess, and, with impotent rage, admitted
the truth of Boisrueil's surmises. The rearward gate had been
barricaded that afternoon by the Great Band, who had had notice of our
coming, and intended to attack us at midnight. I asked her how many
they mustered.

"A hundred," she answered sullenly.

"Very well," I said. "And, supposing that we do not wait for them, how
shall we escape? By the road to Gueret?"

"Fifty lie in ambush on it."

"By the road by which we came?"

"The other fifty lie there."

"Across the river?"

"There is no ford."

"Then in the village? If we seize some other building?"

"The village is watched, and this house," she answered, with a sparkle
of joy in her eye.

At that the position began to assume so serious an aspect that I turned
to Parabere to take his advice. We numbered