And the troopers. What if, when I had
killed their leader, they made the place too hot for me,
Monseigneur's commission notwithstanding? I should look silly,
indeed, if on the eve of success I were driven from the place by
a parcel of jack-boots.
I liked the thought so little that I hesitated. Yet it seemed
too late to retreat. The Captain and the Lieutenant were waiting
for me in a little open space fifty yards from the house, where a
narrower path crossed the broad walk, down which I had first seen
Mademoiselle and her sister pacing. The Captain had removed his
doublet, and stood in his shirt leaning against the sundial, his
head bare and his sinewy throat uncovered. He had drawn his
rapier and stood pricking the ground impatiently. I marked his
strong and nervous frame and his sanguine air: and twenty years
earlier the sight might have damped me. But no thought of the
kind entered my head now, and though I felt with each moment
greater reluctance to engage, doubt of the issue had no place in
my calculations.
I made ready slowly, and would gladly, to gain time, have found
some fault with the place.
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