, and with uplifted hands, he
cursed him in bed and at board, by day and by night, in walking, in
riding, in standing, in the day of battle, and at the hour of death. The
pikemen fell back appalled, and hid their eyes; and those who were of the
north crossed themselves, and those who came from the south bent two
fingers horse-shoe fashion. But Hannibal de Tavannes laughed; laughed in
his moustache, his teeth showing, and bade them move that carrion to a
distance, for it would smell when the sun was high. Then he turned his
back on the street, and looked into the room.

CHAPTER VII. IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.

The movements of the women had overturned two of the candles; a third had
guttered out. The three which still burned, contending pallidly with the
daylight that each moment grew stronger, imparted to the scene the air of
a debauch too long sustained. The disordered board, the wan faces of the
servants cowering in their corner, Mademoiselle's frozen look of misery,
all increased the likeness; which a common exhaustion so far strengthened
that when Tavannes turned from the window, and, flushed with his triumph,
met the others' eyes, his seemed the only vigour, and he the only man in
the company. True, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the collapse of his
victims, there burned passions, hatreds, repulsions, as fierce as the
hidden fires of the volcano; but for the time they smouldered ash-choked
and inert.

He flung the discharged pistols on the table. "If yonder raven speak
truth," he said, "I am like to pay dearly for my wife, and have short
time to call her wife. The more need, Mademoiselle, for speed,
therefore. You know the old saying, 'Short signing, long seisin'? Shall
it be my priest, or your minister?"

M. de Tignonville started forward. "She promised nothing!" he cried. And
he struck his hand on the table.

Count Hannibal smiled, his lip curling. "That," he replied, "is for
Mademoiselle to say."

"But if she says it? If she says it, Monsieur? What then?"

Tavannes drew forth a comfit-box, such as it was the fashion of the day
to carry, as men of a later time carried a snuff-box. He slowly chose a
prune.

"If she says it?" he answered. "Then M. de Tignonville has regained his
sweetheart. And M. de Tavannes has lost his bride."

"You say so?"

"Yes. But--"

"But what?"

"But she will not say it," Tavannes replied coolly.

"Why not?"

"Why not?"

"Yes, Monsieur, why not?