All this flashed through my mind while I was fixing on Pavannes’ badges.  Not that I lost time about it, for from the moment I grasped the position as he conceived it, every minute we had wasted on explanations seemed to me an hour.  I reproached myself for having forgotten even for an instant that which had brought us to town—­the rescue of Kit’s lover.  We had small chance now of reaching him in time, misled as we had been by this miserable mistake in identity.  If my companion’s fears were well founded, Louis would fall in the general massacre of the Huguenots, probably before we could reach him.  If ill-founded, still we had small reason to hope.  Bezers’ vengeance would not wait.  I knew him too well to think it.  A Guise might spare his foe, but the Vidame—­the Vidame never!  We had warned Madame de Pavannes it was true; but that abnormal exercise of benevolence could only, I cynically thought, have the more exasperated the devil within him, which now would be ravening like a dog disappointed of its victuals.

I glanced up at the line of sky visible between the tall houses, and lo! the dawn was coming.  It wanted scarcely half-an-hour of daylight, though down in the dark streets about us the night still reigned.  Yes, the morning was coming, bright and hopeful, and the city was quiet.  There were no signs, no sounds of riot or disorder.  Surely, I thought, surely Pavannes must be mistaken.  Either the plot had never existed, that was most likely, or it had been abandoned, or perhaps—­Crack!

A pistol shot!  Short, sharp, ominous it rang out on the instant, a solitary sound in the night!  It was somewhere near us, and I stopped.  I had been speaking to my companion at the moment.  “Where was it?” I cried, looking behind me.

“Close to us.  Near the Louvre,” he answered, listening intently.  “See!  See!  Ah, heavens!” he continued in a voice of despair, “it was a signal!”

It was.  One, two, three!  Before I could count so far, lights sprang into brightness in the windows of nine out of ten houses in the short street where we stood, as if lighted by a single hand.  Before too I could count as many more, or ask him what this meant, before indeed, we could speak or stir from the spot, or think what we should do, with a hurried clang and clash, as if brought into motion by furious frenzied hands, a great bell just above our heads began to boom and whirr!  It hurled its notes into space, it suddenly filled all the silence.  It dashed its harsh sounds down upon the trembling city, till the air heaved, and the houses about us rocked.  It made in an instant a pandemonium of the quiet night.

We turned and hurried instinctively from the place, crouching and amazed, looking upwards with bent shoulders and scared faces.  “What is it?  What is it?” I cried, half in resentment; half in terror.  It deafened me.

“The bell of St. Germain l’Auxerrois!” he shouted in answer.  “The Church of the Louvre.  It is as I said.  We are doomed!”