He knew what he had done, then.  Before his horse’s iron shoes struck the ground again, his face—­even his face—­had lost its colour.  But he knew also that to hesitate now, to pause now, was to be torn in pieces; for his riders, seeing that which the banner had veiled from him, had not followed him, and he was alone, in the middle of brandished fists and weapons.  He hesitated not a moment.  Drawing a pistol, he spurred onwards, his horse plunging wildly among the shrieking priests; and though a hundred hands, hands of acolytes, hands of shaven monks, clutched at his bridle or gripped his boot, he got clear of them.  Clear, carrying with him the memory of one face seen an instant amid the crowd, one face seen, to be ever remembered—­the face of Father Pezelay, white, evil, scarred, distorted by wicked triumph.

Behind him, the thunder of “Sacrilege!  Sacrilege!” rose to Heaven, and men were gathering.  In front the crowd which skirmished about the inn was less dense, and, ignorant of the thing that had happened in the narrow street, made ready way for him, the boldest recoiling before the look on his face.  Some who stood nearest to the inn, and had begun to hurl stones at the window and to beat on the doors—­which had only the minute before closed on Badelon and his prisoners—­supposed that he had his riders behind him; and these fled apace.  But he knew better even than they the value of time; he pushed his horse up to the gates, and hammered them with his boot while be kept his pistol-hand towards the Place and the cathedral, watching for the transformation which he knew would come!

And come it did; on a sudden, in a twinkling!  A white-faced monk, frenzy in his eyes, appeared in the midst of the crowd.  He stood and tore his garments before the people, and, stooping, threw dust on his head.  A second and a third followed his example; then from a thousand throats the cry of “Sacrilege!  Sacrilege!” rolled up, while clerks flew wildly hither and thither shrieking the tale, and priests denied the Sacraments to Angers until it should purge itself of the evil thing.

By that time Count Hannibal had saved himself behind the great gates, by the skin of his teeth.  The gates had opened to him in time.  But none knew better than he that Angers had no gates thick enough, nor walls of a height, to save him for many hours from the storm he had let loose!

CHAPTER XXXI.  THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS.

But that only the more roused the devil in the man; that, and the knowledge that he had his own headstrong act to thank for the position.  He looked on the panic-stricken people who, scared by the turmoil without, had come together in the courtyard, wringing their hands and chattering; and his face was so dark and forbidding that fear of him took the place of all other fear, and the nearest shrank from contact with him.  On any other entering as he had entered, they would have hailed questions; they would have asked what was amiss, and if the city were rising, and where were Bigot and his men.  But Count Hannibal’s eye struck curiosity dumb.  When he cried from his saddle, “Bring me the landlord!” the trembling man was found, and brought, and thrust forward almost without a word.