Presently M. Etienne cried out: 

“Death of my life!  Had I fought there in the burrow, I should have changed the history of France!”

XXI

A chance encounter.

The street before us was as orderly as the aisle of Notre Dame.  Few way-farers passed us; those there were talked together as placidly as if love-trysts and melees existed not, and tunnels and countersigns were but the smoke of a dream.  It was a street of shops, all shuttered, while, above, the burghers’ families went respectably to bed.

“This is the Rue de la Ferronnerie,” my master said, pausing a moment to take his bearings.  “See, under the lantern, the sign of the Pierced Heart.  The little shop is in the Rue de la Soierie.  We are close by the Halles—­we must have come half a mile underground.  Well, we’ll swing about in a circle to get home.  For this night I’ve had enough of the Hotel de Lorraine.”

And I. But I held my tongue about it, as became me.

“They were wider awake than I thought—­those Lorrainers.  Pardieu!  Feix, you and I came closer quarters with death than is entirely amusing.”

“If that door had not opened-” I shuddered.

“A new saint in the calendar—­la Sainte Ferou!  But what a madcap of a saint, then!  My faith, she must have led them a dance when Francis I was king!

“Natheless it galls me,” he went on, half to himself, “to know that I was lost by my own folly, saved by pure chance.  I underrated the enemy—­worst mistake in the book of strategy.  I came near flinging away two lives and making a most unsightly mess under a lady’s window.”

“Monsieur made somewhat of a mess as it was.”

“Aye.  I would I knew whether I killed Brie.  We’ll go round in the morning and find out.”

“I am thankful that monsieur does not mean to go to-night.”

“Not to-night, Felix; I’ve had enough.  No; we’ll get home without passing near the Hotel de Lorraine, if we go outside the walls to do it.  To-night I draw my sword no more.”

To this day I have no quite clear idea of how we went.  A strange city at night—­Paris of all cities—­is a labyrinth.  I know that after a time we came out in some meadows along the river-bank, traversed them, and plunged once more into narrow, high-walled streets.  It was very late, and lights were few.  We had started in clear starlight, but now a rack of clouds hid even their pale shine.

“The snake-hole over again,” said M. Etienne.  “But we are almost at our own gates.”

But, as in the snake-hole, came light.  Turning a sharp corner, we ran straight into a gentleman and his porte-flambeau, swinging along at as smart a pace as we.

“A thousand pardons,” M. Etienne cried to his encounterer, the possessor of years and gravity but of no great size, whom he had almost knocked down.  “I heard you, but knew not you were so close.  We were speeding to get home.”