"We have been examining the back gate, M. le Marquis," Colet said.
"Well, man?"
"It is barricaded, and cannot be opened," he answered.
"Well," I said again, "there is nothing wonderful in that.
Anyone can see that there has been rough work here. The front gate was stormed, I suppose, and the back one left standing.""But if is so barricaded that it is not possible to open it," he objected. "And the men have an idea--""Well?" I said, seeing that he hesitated.
"That this is a one-eyed house."
Parabere laughed loudly. "Of course it is!" he said. "That strolling rogue saw the gate as well as the woman, and made his profit of them.""Pardon, sir!" Boisrueil answered bluntly, "That is just what he did not do!""Well," I said, silencing him by a gesture, "is that all?""No," he replied; "I have tasted the men's wine.""And it is drugged?"
"No," he said. "On the contrary, it is a great deal too good for the price--or the house. And you ordered a litre apiece. Some have had two, and not asked twice for it!""Ho, ho!" I said, staring at him. "Are you sure of that?""Quite!" he said.
I was genuinely startled at last; but Parabere still made light of it. "What!" he said. "Are we a pack of nervous women, or one poor traveller in a solitary inn, that we see shadows and shake at them?""The inn is solitary enough," Boisrueil grumbled.
"But we are twenty swords!" Parabere retorted, opening his eyes wide. "Why, I have ridden all day in an enemy's country with less!""And been beaten with more at Craon."
"But, man alive, that was in a battle, and by an army!""Well, and there may be a battle and an army here," Boisrueil answered sulkily, I was inclined to laugh at this as extravagance; but seeing that La Font and Colet sided with Boisrueil, I remembered that the latter was no coward though a great gossip; and I thought better of it. Accordingly, resolving to look into the thing myself, Ibade La Font fetch a couple of lanthorns, and, when he had done so, went out with him and Boisrueil as if I had a mind to go round the horses before I retired. Parabere declined to accompany me on the ground that he would not be at the pains of it; and Colet I left in the kitchen to keep an eye on the man and woman.
There was no moon, rain was still falling, and the yard, crowded with steaming, shivering horses, was dreary enough where the lanthorns displayed it; but, accustomed to such a sight, I made, without regarding it, for the gate, which a moment's examination showed to be barricaded, as they had described, with great beams and stones. In this there was nothing beyond the ordinary, one entrance to a house being in troublous times better than two; but Boisrueil, bidding me kneel and look lower, I found, when I did so, that the soil under the beams--which did not touch the ground by some inches--was wet, and I began to understand. When he asked me at what hour rain had begun to fall, I answered two in the afternoon, and drew at once the inference at which he aimed--that the beams had been put there, and the gate barricaded, at some later hour.
"We reached here at six," he said; "it was done some time between two and six, my lord; therefore to-day. To-day," he repeated in a low voice; "and by a dozen men at least, Fewer could not move those beams.""And the object?"
"To prevent our escape."
"But who are they?" I said, looking at him.
"The woman knows," he answered. "We must ask her, my lord."I assented; and we went back into the house, where it would not have surprised me if we had found the wretches flown and the nest empty. But Colet had done his work too well. They were both there, and, in a moment, at a signal from Boisrueil, were secured and pinioned. Parabere, hearing the scuffle, came out and would have remonstrated, but I silenced him with a sharp word; and, despatching La Font with a couple of discreet men to keep watch in the court that we might not be surprised, I bade one of the servants throw some fir-cones on the fire. These, blazing up, filled the squalid room in a moment with a glare of light, which revealed alike the livid faces of the two prisoners and the excited looks and dark countenances of my escort.
I bade them put the woman forward first, and addressed her sternly, telling her that I knew all, and that she would do well to confess; inasmuch as if she made a clean breast of the matter, I would grant her her life, and if she did not, she would be the first to die, since I would hang her were a single shot fired against the house.
The promise found her unmoved, but the threat, uttered in a tone which showed that I was in earnest, proved more effectual. With an ugly look, under which my men shrank as if her eye had power to scorch them, the hag said that she would confess, and, with impotent rage, admitted the truth of Boisrueil's surmises. The rearward gate had been barricaded that afternoon by the Great Band, who had had notice of our coming, and intended to attack us at midnight. I asked her how many they mustered.
"A hundred," she answered sullenly.
"Very well," I said. "And, supposing that we do not wait for them, how shall we escape? By the road to Gueret?""Fifty lie in ambush on it."
"By the road by which we came?"
"The other fifty lie there."
"Across the river?"
"There is no ford."
"Then in the village? If we seize some other building?""The village is watched, and this house," she answered, with a sparkle of joy in her eye.
At that the position began to assume so serious an aspect that Iturned to Parabere to take his advice. We numbered twenty in all, and were well armed; but five to one are large odds, and we had little ammunition, while, for all we knew, the house might be fired with ease from the outside. The roads north and south being occupied, and the river enclosing us on the west, there remained only one direction in which escape seemed possible; but, as we knew nothing of the country, and the brigands everything, the desperate idea of plunging into it blindly, at night, and with pursuers at our heels, was dismissed as soon as formed.
