?"

"In doing, Messer Syndic," Petitot answered sharply, "that which should
have been done a week ago; and better still a fortnight ago. In issuing
a warrant for the arrest of the person whose name has been several times
in question here."

"Messer Basterga?"

"The same."

"You may save yourselves the trouble," the Syndic replied, with a little
contempt. "The warrant has been issued. It was issued yesterday, and
would have been executed in the afternoon, if he had not got wind of it,
and left the town. And on this let me say one more word," Blondel
continued, leaning forward and speaking in sudden heat, before any one
could take up the question. "That word is this. If it had not been for
the importunity of some who are here, the warrant had _not_ been issued,
the man had still been within the walls, and we had been able still to
trace his plans! We had not been as we now are, and as I foretold we
should be, in the dark, ignorant from which quarter the blow may fall,
and not a whit the wiser for the hint given us."

"You have let him escape!" The words were Petitot's.

"I? No! I have not let him escape, but those who forced my hand!"
Blondel retorted in passion, so real, or so well simulated, that it
swept away the majority of his listeners. "They have let him escape!
Those who had no patience or craft! Those whose only notion of
statesmanship, whose only method of making use of the document we had
under our hand was to tear it up. Only yesterday morning I was with
him----"

"Ay?" Baudichon cried, his eyes glowing with dull passion. "You were
with him! And he went in the afternoon! Mark that!" He turned quickly to
his fellows. "He went in the afternoon! Now, I would like to know----"

Blondel stood up. "Whether I am a traitor?" he said, in a tone of fury;
and he extended his arms in protest. "Whether I am in league with this
Italian, I, Philibert Blondel of Geneva? That is what you ask, what you
wish to know! Whether I sought him yesterday in the hope of worming his
secrets from him, and doing what I could for the benefit of the State in
a matter too delicate to be left to underlings? Or went there, one with
him, to betray my country? To sell the Free City? That--that is what you
ask?"

His passion was full, overpowering, convincing; so convincing--it almost
stopped his speech--that he believed in it himself, so convincing that
it swept away all but his steady and professed opponents. "No, no!"
cried a dozen