“Then hear them.  His Excellency is informed that one Hannibal de Tavannes, guilty of the detestable crime of sacrilege and of other gross crimes, has taken refuge here.  He requires that the said Hannibal de Tavannes be handed to him for punishment, and, this being done before sunset this evening, he will yield to you free and uninjured the said M. de Tignonville, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac.  But if you refuse”—­the man passed his eye along the line of attentive faces which fringed the battlement—­“he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on the gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the demesne of Vrillac to its farthest border!”

There was a long silence on the gate.  Some, their gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they chewed.  Others looked aside, met their fellows’ eyes in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him.  But no one spoke.  At his back the flush of dawn was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing brighter.  The air was growing warm; the shore below, from grey, was turning green.

In a minute or two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped above the low hills of France, would top the horizon.

The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneasily.  “Well,” he cried, “what answer am I to take?”

Still no one moved.

“I’ve done my part.  Will no one give her the letter?” he cried.  And he held it up.  “Give me my answer, for I am going.”

“Take the letter!” The words came from the rear of the group in a voice that startled all.  They turned, as though some one had struck them, and saw the Countess standing beside the hood which covered the stairs.  They guessed that she had heard all or nearly all; but the glory of the sunrise, shining full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to her face, and life to eyes woefully and tragically set.  It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not.  “Take the letter,” she repeated.

Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.

“Go down!”

He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their eyes bent downwards.  The messenger, waving the letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely; a light air, as treacherous, as unexpected, had snatched it from his hand, and bore it—­even as the Countess, drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet—­fifty paces from him.  A moment it floated in the air, eddying, rising, falling; then, light as thistledown, it touched the water and began to sink.

The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and stamped the causeway in his rage.  The Countess only looked, and looked, until the rippling crest of a baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its freight of tidings it sank from sight.

The man, silent now, stared a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, ’tis fortunate it was his,” he cried brutally, “and not His Excellency’s, or my back had suffered!  And now,” he added impatiently, “by your leave, what answer?”