"Holà there, within!" came Montrésor's voice. "Monsieur le Capitaine!" A fresh shower of blows descended on the oak panels.
I yawned with prodigious sonority, and overturned a chair with my foot. Then bracing myself for the ordeal, through which I looked to what scant information I possessed and my own mother wit, to bear me successfully, I strode across to admit my visitor.
Muffling my voice, as I had heard St. Auban do at the inn, by drawing my nether lip over my teeth-"Pardieu!" quoth I, as I opened the door, "it seems, Lieutenant, that I must have fallen asleep over those musty documents."
I trembled as I watched him, waiting for his reply, and I thanked Heaven that in the rôle I had assumed a mask was worn, not only because it hid my features, but because it hid the emotions which these might have betrayed.
"I was beginning to fear," he replied coldly, and without so much as looking at me, "that worse had befallen you."
I breathed again.
"You mean--?"
"Pooh, nothing," said he half contemptuously. "Only methinks 't were well whilst we remain at Canaples that you do not spend your nights in a room within such easy access of the terrace."
"Your advice no doubt is sound, but as I shall not spend another night at Canaples, it comes too late."
"You mean, Monsieur--?"
"That we set out for Paris to-day."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, ça! I have just visited the stables, and there are not four horses fit for the journey. So that unless you have in mind the purchase of fresh animals--"
"Pish! My purse is not bottomless," I broke in, repeating the very words that I heard St. Auban utter.
"So you said once before, Monsieur. Still, unless you are prepared to take that course, the only alternative is to remain here until the horses are sufficiently recovered. But perhaps you think of walking?" he added with a sniff.
"Such is your opinion, your time being worthless and it being of little moment where you spend it. I have conceived a plan."
"Ah!"
"Has it not occurred to you that the danger which threatens us and which calls for the protection of a troop is only on this side of the Loire, where the Blaisois might be minded to attempt a rescue of the Chevalier? But over yonder, Chevalier, on the Chambord side, who cares a fig for the Lord of Canaples or his fate? None; is it not so?"
He made an assenting gesture, whereupon I continued: "This being so, I have bethought me that it will suffice if I take but three or four men and the sergeant as an escort, and cross the river with our prisoner after nightfall, travelling along the opposite shore until we reach Orleans. What think you, Lieutenant?"