There was something so solemn in the aspect of the place, the
night being fine and the sky without a cloud, that I stood for a
minute awed and impressed, the sense of the responsibility I was
here to accept strong upon me. In that short space of time all
the dangers before me, as well the common risks of the road as
the vengeance of Turenne and the turbulence of my own men,
presented themselves to my mind, and made a last appeal to me to
turn back from an enterprise so foolhardy. The blood in a man's
veins runs low and slow at that hour, and mine was chilled by
lack of sleep and the wintry air. It needed the remembrance of
my solitary condition, of my past spent in straits and failure,
of the grey hairs which swept my cheek, of the sword which I had
long used honourably, if with little profit to myself; it needed
the thought of all these things to restore me to courage and
myself.

I judged at a later period that my companion was affected in
somewhat the same way; for, as I stooped to press home the pegs
which I had brought to tether the horses, he laid his hand on my
arm. Glancing up to see what he wanted, I was struck by the wild
look in his face (which the moonlight invested with a peculiar
mottled pallor), and particularly in his eyes, which glittered
like a madman's. He tried to speak, but seemed to find a
difficulty in doing so; and I had to question him roughly before
he found his tongue. When he did speak, it was only to implore
me in an odd, excited manner to give up the expedition and
return.

'What, now?' I said, surprised. 'Now we are here, Fresnoy?'