"Well, my lord, as you will," he said sullenly. "All the same I would
advise you to close the door and bolt and bar. We shall not be the last
to call to-day." And he turned his horse in ill-humour, and forced it,
snorting and plunging, through the crowd.

"Bolt and bar?" Tavannes cried after him in fury. "See you my answer to
that!" And turning on the threshold, "Within there!" he cried. "Open
the shutters and set lights, and the table! Light, I say; light! And
lay on quickly, if you value your lives! And throw open, for I sup with
your mistress to-night, if it rain blood without! Do you hear me,
rogues? Set on!"

He flung the last word at the quaking servants; then he turned again to
the street. He saw that the crowd was melting, and, looking in
Tignonville's face, he laughed aloud.

"Does Monsieur sup with us?" he said. "To complete the party? Or will
he choose to sup with our friends yonder? It is for him to say. I
confess, for my part," with an awful smile, "their hospitality seems a
trifle crude, and boisterous."

Tignonville looked behind him and shuddered. The same horde which had so
lately pressed about the door had found a victim lower down the street,
and, as Tavannes spoke, came driving back along the roadway, a mass of
tossing lights and leaping, running figures, from the heart of which rose
the screams of a creature in torture. So terrible were the sounds that
Tignonville leant half swooning against the door-post; and even the iron
heart of Tavannes seemed moved for a moment.