I stood there long, first on one foot and then on the other, fearful every moment lest some one of Monsieur’s true men should come along to demand my business.  No one appeared, either foe or friend, for so long that I began to think Yeux-gris had tricked me and sent me here on a fool’s errand, when, all at once, a low voice said close to my ear: 

“What seek you here?”

I jumped on finding at my side a little, pale, sharp-faced man—­the man of the vision.  He had slipped through the door so suddenly and quietly that I was once more tempted to take him for a ghost.  He eyed me for a bare second; then his eyes dropped before mine.

“I am come to learn the hour,” said I.

“Did you not hear the chimes ring five?”

“Oh, no need for disguise.  I am come from the two in the Rue Coupejarrets.  They bade me ask the hour.”

He favoured me with another of his shifty glances.

“What hour meant they?”

I said bluntly, in a louder tone: 

“The hour when M. Lucas sets out on his secret mission.”

“Hush!” he cried.  “Hush!  Don’t say names aloud—­his or the other’s.”

“Well,” I said crossly, “you have kept me waiting already more time than I care to lose.  How much longer before you will tell me what I came to know?”

He looked at me sharply for another brief instant before his eyes slunk away from mine.

“You should have a password.”

“They gave me none.  They told me to say I came from the shuttered house in the Rue Coupejarrets, and that would be enough.”

“How came you into this business?”

“By a back window.”

He gave me another suspicious glance, but making nothing by it, he rejoined: 

“Eh bien, I trust you.  I will tell you.”

He clutched my arm and drew me to the back of the arch, where the afternoon shadows were already gathered.

“What have you for me?” he demanded.

“Nothing.  What should I have?”

“No gold?”

“No.”

“He promised me ten pistoles to-day.  He did not give them to you?”

“I tell you, no.”

“You are a thief!  You have them!”

He stepped forward menacingly; so did I. He then fell back as abruptly.

“Nay, it was a jest; I know you are honest.  But he promised me ten pistoles.”

“He did not give them to me,” I said.  “Perhaps he was not so convinced of my honesty.  He will doubtless pay you afterward.”

“Afterward!” he retorted in a high key.  “By our Lady, he shall pay me afterward!  The gutters will run gold then, will they?  Pardieu!  I will see that a good stream flows my way.  But one cannot play to-day with to-morrow’s coin.  He said I should have ten pistoles when I let him know the hour.”

“I cannot mend that.  It lies between you and him.  I have not seen or heard of any money.”

Martin edged up close to the door of retreat and waxed defiant.