Nay, keep your hands
still, Saint-Eustache. I don't fight catchpolls, and if you give me
trouble my men are yonder." And I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.
"And now to business. I am not minded to talk all day. I was saying
that I marvel at your temerity, and more particularly at your having
laid information against Monsieur de Lavedan, and having come here
to arrest him, knowing, as you must know, that I am interested in
the Vicomte."
"I have heard of that interest, monsieur," said he, with a sneer
for which I could have struck him.
"This act of yours," I pursued, ignoring his interpolation, "savours
very much of flying in the face of Destiny. It almost seems to me
as if you were defying me."
His lip trembled, and his eyes shunned my glance.
"Indeed - indeed, monsieur--" he was protesting, when I cut him
short.
"You cannot be so great a fool but that you must realize that if I
tell the King what I know of you, you will be stripped of your
ill-gotten gains, and broken on the wheel for a double traitor - a
betrayer of your fellow-rebels."
"But you will not do that, monsieur?" he cried. "It would be
unworthy in you."
At that I laughed in his face. "Heart of God! Are you to be what
you please, and do you still expect that men shall be nice in
dealing with you? I would do this thing, and, by my faith, Monsieur
de Eustache, I will do it, if you compel me!"
He reddened and moved his foot uneasily. Perhaps I did not take
the best way with him, after all.
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