shed him back, passed by him, entered. It was Basterga. The
Syndic shut the door, and staggered rather than walked after him to the
parlour. There the Syndic set down the lamp, and turned to the scholar,
his face a picture of guilty terror. "What is it?" he muttered. "What
has happened? Is--the thing put off?"

The other's aspect answered his question. A black corselet with shoulder
pieces, and a feathered steel cap raised Basterga's huge stature almost
to the gigantic. Nor did it need this to render him singular; to draw
the eye to him a second time and a third. The man himself in this hour
of his success, this moment of conscious daring, of reliance on his star
and his strength, towered in the room like a demi-god. "No," he
answered, with a ponderous, exultant smile, slow to come, slow to go.
"No, Messer Blondel. Far from it. It has not been put off."

"Something has been discovered?"

"No. We are here. That is all."

The Syndic supported himself by a hand pressed hard against the table
behind him. "Here?" he gasped. "You are here? You have the town already?
It is impossible."

"We have three hundred men in the Corraterie," Basterga answered. "We
hold the Tertasse Gate, and the Monnaye. The Porte Neuve is cut off, and
at our mercy; it will be taken when we give the signal. Beyond it four
thousand men are waiting to enter. We hold Geneva in our grip at
last--at last!" And in an accent half tragic, half ironic, he
declaimed:--

"Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus
Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens
Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos
Transtulit!"

And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. And
he extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise your
warrant now--if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic," he continued in a tone
of mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment," he
pointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Do
justice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it,
Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics."

The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, little
used to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod over
the views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to be
scorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked so
silkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poor
scholar so well,