“Account him already abased,” returned Caravaja.  “By Pelayo, I would the other were at his back, that both might be transfixed at a blow—­ha!”

“To return to the subject of difference,” said the Sorbonist, who was too much delighted with the prospect of a duel to allow the quarrel a chance of subsiding, while it was in his power to fan the flame; “to return to the difference,” said he, aloud, glancing at Ogilvy; “it must be conceded that as a wassailer this Crichton is without a peer.  None of us may presume to cope with him in the matter of the flask and the flagon, though we number among us some jolly topers.  Friar John, with the Priestess of Bacbuc, was a washy bibber compared with him.”

“He worships at the shrines of other priestesses besides hers of Bacbuc, if I be not wrongly informed,” added Montaigu, who understood the drift of his companion.

“Else, wherefore our rejoinder to his cartels?” returned the Sorbonist.  “Do you not call to mind that beneath his arrogant defiance of our learned body, affixed to the walls of the Sorbonne, it was written, ’That he who would behold this miracle of learning must hie to the tavern or bordel?’ Was it not so, my hidalgo?”

“I have myself seen him at the temulentive tavern of the Falcon,” returned Caravaja, “and at the lupanarian haunts in the Champ Gaillard and the Val-d’Amour.  You understand me—­ha!”

“Ha! ha! ha!” chorused the scholars.  “James Crichton is no stoic.  He is a disciple of Epicurus. Vel in puellam impingit, vel in poculum—­ha! ha!”

“’Tis said that he hath dealings with the Evil One,” observed the man of Harcourt, with a mysterious air; “and that, like Jeanne d’Arc, he hath surrendered his soul for his temporal welfare.  Hence his wondrous lore; hence his supernatural beauty and accomplishments; hence his power of fascinating the fair sex; hence his constant run of luck with the dice; hence, also, his invulnerableness to the sword.”

“’Tis said, also, that he has a familiar spirit, who attends him in the semblance of a black dog,” said Montaigu.

“Or in that of a dwarf, like the sooty imp of Cosmo Ruggieri,” said Harcourt.  “Is it not so?” he asked, turning to the Scot.

“He lies in his throat who says so,” cried Ogilvy, losing all patience.  “To one and all of you I breathe defiance; and there is not a brother in the college to which I belong who will not maintain my quarrel.”

A loud laugh of derision followed this sally; and, ashamed of having justly exposed himself to ridicule by his idle and unworthy display of passion, the Scotsman held his peace and endeavored to turn a deaf ear to their taunts.

The gates of the College of Navarre were suddenly thrown open, and a long-continued thunder of applause bursting from within, announced the conclusion of the debate.  That it had terminated in favor of Crichton could no longer be doubted, as his name formed the burden of all the plaudits with which the courts were ringing.  All was excitement:  there was a general movement.  Ogilvy could no longer restrain himself.  Pushing forward by prodigious efforts, he secured himself a position at the portal.