“It is the black art,” the other answered, crossing herself.

“Maybe it is!  But he will need it all to give that big man the slip to-day,” replied the first speaker comfortably.

“That devil!” Margot exclaimed, pointing with a stealthy gesture of hate at the Vidame.  And then in a fierce whisper, with inarticulate threats, she told a story of him, which made me shudder.  “He did!  And she in religion too!” she concluded.  “May our Lady of Loretto reward him.”

The tale might be true for aught I knew, horrible as it was!  I had heard similar ones attributing things almost as fiendish to him, times and again; from that poor fellow lying dead on Pavannes’ doorstep for one, and from others besides.  As the Vidame in his pacing to and fro turned towards us, I gazed at him fascinated by his grim visage and that story.  His eye rested on the crowd about us, and I trembled, lest even at that distance he should recognise us.

And he did!  I had forgotten his keenness of sight.  His face flashed suddenly into a grim smile.  The tail of his eye resting upon us, and seeming to forbid us to move, he gave some orders.  The colour fled from my face.  To escape indeed was impossible, for we were hemmed in by the press and could scarcely stir a limb.  Yet I did make one effort.

“Croisette!” I muttered he was the rearmost—­“stoop down.  He may not have seen you.  Stoop down, lad!”

But St. Croix was obstinate and would not stoop.  Nay, when one of the mounted men came, and roughly ordered us into the open, it was Croisette who pushing past us stepped out first with a lordly air.  I, following him, saw that his lips were firmly compressed and that there was an eager light in his eyes.  As we emerged, the crowd in our wake broke the line, and tried to pursue us; either hostilely or through eagerness to see what it meant.  But a dozen blows of the long pikes drove them back, howling and cursing to their places.

I expected to be taken to Bezers; and what would follow I could not tell.  But he did always it seemed what we least expected, for he only scowled at us now, a grim mockery on his lip, and cried, “See that they do not escape again!  But do them no harm, sirrah, until I have the batch of them!”

He turned one way, and I another, my heart swelling with rage.  Would he dare to harm us?  Would even the Vidame dare to murder a Caylus’ nephew openly and in cold blood?  I did not think so.  And yet—­and yet—­

Croisette interrupted the train of my thoughts.  I found that he was not following me.  He had sprung away, and in a dozen strides reached the Vidame’s stirrup, and was clasping his knee when I turned.  I could not hear at the distance at which I stood, what he said, and the horseman to whom Bezers had committed us spurred between us.  But I heard the Vidame’s answer.

“No! no! no!” he cried with a ring of restrained fury in his voice.  “Let my plans alone!  What do you know of them?  And if you speak to me again, M. St. Croix—­I think that is your name, boy—­I will—­no, I will not kill you.  That might please you, you are stubborn, I can see.  But I will have you stripped and lashed like the meanest of my scullions!  Now go, and take care!”