With all solemnity I swore it on my cross.

“That oath will be kept,” said Yeux-gris.  He held out a sudden hand for the cross, which I gave him, wondering.

“I swear that we mean no harm whatsoever to the Duke of St. Quentin.”  He kissed the cross and flung the chain back over my neck.

At last I saw the door unlocked.  Yeux-gris even returned to me my knife.

“Au revoir, messieurs.”

Gervais, sullen to the last, vouchsafed no answer, but Yeux-gris called out cheerily, “Au revoir.”

VI

A matter of life and death.

Nothing in life can be so sweet as freedom after captivity, safety after danger.  When I gained the open street once more and breathed the open air, no one molesting or troubling me, I could have sung with joy.  I fairly hugged myself for my cleverness in getting out of my plight.  As for the combat I was furthering, my only doubt about that was lest the skulking Lucas should not prove good sword enough to give trouble to M. Gervais.  It was very far from my wish that he should come out of the attempt unscathed.

But as I went along and had more time to ponder the matter, other doubts forced themselves into my reluctant mind.  Put it as I pleased, the affair smacked too much of secrecy to be quite savoury.  It was curious, to say the least, that an honest encounter should require so much plotting.  Also, Lucas, coward and rascal though he might be, was Monsieur’s man, doing Monsieur’s errand, and for me to mix myself up in a plot against him was scarcely in keeping with my vaunted loyalty to the house of St. Quentin.  My friend Gervais’s quarrel might be just; his manner of procedure, even, might be just, and yet I have no right to take part in it.

And yet Monsieur had signified plainly enough that he was no longer my patron.  For my birth’s sake I might never work against him, but I was free to do whatever else I chose.  Monsieur himself had made it necessary for me to take another master, and assuredly I owed something to Yeux-gris.  I had reason to feel confidence in his honour; surely I might reckon that he would not be in the affair unless it were honest.  Lucas was like enough a scoundrel of whom Monsieur would be well rid.  And lastly and finally and above all, I was sworn, so there was no use worrying about it.  I had taken oath, and could not draw back.

I hurried along to the rendezvous, only pausing one moment at the street-corner to buy sausages hot from the brazier, which I crammed into my mouth as I ran.  But after all was there no need of haste; the little arch, when I panted up to it, was all deserted.

No better place for a tryst could have been found in the heart of busy Paris.  Only the one door opened into the alley; M. de Portreuse’s high garden wall, forming the other side of the passage, was unbroken by a gate, and no curious eyes from the house could look into the deep arch and see the narrow nail-studded door at the back where I awaited the rat-faced Martin.