Count Hannibal

"Unstable as water thou shalt not excel!" he muttered. "Now I know why

there was only one egg."

Meanwhile Tignonville, after putting a hundred yards between himself and

his bedfellow, plunged into the first dark entry which presented itself.

Hurriedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his left sleeve from

shoulder to wrist; and this act, by disclosing his linen, put him in

possession of the white sleeve which he had once involuntarily donned,

and once discarded. The white cross on the cap he could not assume, for

he was bareheaded. But he had little doubt that the sleeve would

suffice, and with a bold demeanour he made his way northward until he

reached again the Rue Ferronerie.

Excited groups were wandering up and down the street, and, fearing to

traverse its crowded narrows, he went by lanes parallel with it as far as

the Rue St. Denis, which he crossed. Everywhere he saw houses gutted and

doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and a fanaticism almost

incredible. Near the Rue des Lombards he saw a dead child, stripped

stark and hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. A little farther on

in the same street he stepped over the body of a handsome young woman,

distinguished by the length and beauty of her hair. To obtain her

bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands; afterwards--but God knows

how long afterwards--a passer-by, more pitiful than his fellows, had put

her out of her misery with a spit, which still remained plunged in her

body.

M. de Tignonville shuddered at the sight, and at others like it. He

loathed the symbol he wore, and himself for wearing it; and more than

once his better nature bade him return and play the nobler part. Once he

did turn with that intention. But he had set his mind on comfort and

pleasure, and the value of these things is raised, not lowered, by danger

and uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he turned again.

Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd of wretches who were bearing a

swooning victim to the river, he hurried through the Rue des Lombards,

and reached in safety the house beside the Golden Maid.

He had no doubt now on which side of the Maid Madame St. Lo lived; the

house was plain before him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as

he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all, with all in his

grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which bore no looking at;

and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind him that he

plied the heavy iron knocker which adorned the door.

He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, who were gathered

under one of the tottering gables on the farther side of the street. They

seemed to be watching him, and he fancied--though the distance rendered

this impossible--that he could see suspicion growing in their eyes. At

any moment they might cross the roadway, they might approach, they might

challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and knocked again. Why did

not the porter come?