As is always the case, he grew more and more confirmed in his ill
humour, so soon as the eye of jealousy began to view everything in the
light of prepossession.

Sholto awaked the cellarer out of his crib, who, presently, with
snorts of disdain and much jangling of steel keys, drew half a tankard
from a keg of spirit in the cellar on the dungeon floor and handed it
grudgingly to the captain of the guard.

"The Frenchman wants it, does he?" he growled. "Had the messenger been
old Landless Jock, I had known down whose Scottish throat it had gone,
but this one is surely too young for such tricks. See that you spill
it not by the way, Master Sholto," he called out after him, as that
youth betook himself up to the chamber of the ambassador of France.

At the shut portal he paused and knocked. His hand was on the pin to
enter with the tankard as was the custom. But the door opened no more
than an inch or two, and the dark face of the cropped servitor
appeared in the crevice.

"In a moment, sir," he said, and again vanished within, while a strong
animal odour disengaged itself almost like something tangible from the
chinks of the doorway.

Sholto stood in astonishment with the _eau de vie_ in his hand, till
presently the door was opened again very quickly. The form of the
servitor was seen, and with a swift edging motion he came out, drawing
the door behind him as before. He held a bar of iron in his hand like
the fastening of a window, and a little breath of heat told the