Count Hannibal

Until then, she had known no fear save of her husband. But at that a

sense of the force and pressure of the crowd--as well as of the fierce

passions, straining about her, which a word might unloose--broke upon

her; and looking to the stern men on either side she fancied that she

read anxiety in their faces.

She glanced behind. Boot to boot, the Count's men came on, pressing

round her women and shielding them from the exuberance of the throng. In

their faces too she thought that she traced uneasiness. What wonder if

the scenes through which she had passed in Paris began to recur to her

mind, and shook nerves already overwrought?

She began to tremble. "Is there--danger?" she muttered, speaking in a

low voice to Bigot, who rode on her right hand. "Will they do anything?"

The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the saddle," he said, nodding

towards his master, who rode a pace in front of them, his reins loose.

"There be some here know him!" Bigot continued, in his drawling tone.

"And more will know him if they break line. Have no fear, Madame, he

will bring you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots?" he continued,

turning from her and addressing a rogue who, holding his stirrup, was

shouting the cry till he was crimson. "Then why not away, and--"

"The King! The King's word and leave!" the man answered.

"Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward, while he waved his cap;

"have we the King's leave?"

"You'll bide his leave!" the Norman retorted, indicating the Count with

his thumb. "Or 'twill be up with you--on the three-legged horse!"

"But he comes from the King!" the man panted.

"To be sure. To be sure!"

"Then--"

"You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot answered, rather it seemed for

his own satisfaction than the other's enlightenment. "You'll all bide

it, you dogs!" he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye over the

weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are we? And not too soon,

either."

He fell silent as they entered an open space, overlooked on one side by

the dark facade of the cathedral, on the other three sides by houses more

or less illumined. The rabble swept into this open space with them and

before them, filled much of it in an instant, and for a while eddied and

swirled this way and that, thrust onward by the worshippers who had

issued from the church and backwards by those who had been first in the

square, and had no mind to be hustled out of hearing. A stranger,

confused by the sea of excited faces, and deafened by the clamour of

"Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with cries against the Huguenots,

might have fancied that the whole city was arrayed before him. But he

would have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed--and a dangerous

scum--frothed and foamed and spat under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here

and there among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure of a priest

moved to and fro; or a Benedictine, or some smooth-faced acolyte egged on

to the work he dared not do. But the decent burghers were not there.

They lay bolted in their houses; while the magistrates, with little heart

to do aught except bow to the mob--or other their masters for the time

being--shook in their council chamber.