Count Hannibal eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 419 pages of information about Count Hannibal.

Count Hannibal eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 419 pages of information about Count Hannibal.

And then, even as the men began to slink towards him, his heart leapt.  He heard a footstep heavy and slow move through the house.  It came nearer and nearer.  A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in the door slid open, and a servant, an elderly man, sleek and respectable, looked out at him.

Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement.  “Madame St. Lo?” he muttered tremulously.  “I come to her from her cousin the Comte de Tavannes.  Quick! quick! if you please.  Open to me!”

“Monsieur is alone?”

“Yes!  Yes!”

The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts.  He allowed M. de Tignonville to enter, then with care he secured the door, and led the way across a small square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by the house, but open above to the sunshine and the blue sky.  A gallery which ran round the upper floor looked on this court, in which a great quiet reigned, broken only by the music of a fountain.  A vine climbed on the wooden pillars which supported the gallery, and, aspiring higher, embraced the wide carved eaves, and even tapestried with green the three gables that on each side of the court broke the skyline.  The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid their clusters and the green lattice of their foliage Tignonville’s gaze sought eagerly but in vain the laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress.  For with the closing of the door, and the passing from him of the horrors of the streets, he had entered, as by magic, a new and smiling world; a world of tennis and roses, of tinkling voices and women’s wiles, a world which smacked of Florence and the South, and love and life; a world which his late experiences had set so far away from him, his memory of it seemed a dream.  Now, as he drank in its stillness and its fragrance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him round once more, he sighed.  And with that breath he rid himself of much.

The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room on the farther side of the tiny quadrangle, and, muttering something inaudible, withdrew.  A moment later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter of a woman’s skirt as she tripped across the court, brought the blood to his cheeks.  He went a step nearer to the door, and his eyes grew bright.

CHAPTER X. MADAME ST. LO.

So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his escape.  It was only when he knew himself safe, when he heard Madame St. Lo’s footstep in the courtyard and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he knew also that he was failing for want of food.  The room seemed to go round with him; the window to shift, the light to flicker.  And then again, with equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and perfectly master of himself.  Nay, never had he felt a confidence in himself so overwhelming or a capacity so complete.  The triumph of that which he had done, the knowledge that of so many he, almost alone, had escaped, filled his brain with a delicious and intoxicating vanity.  When the door opened, and Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he advanced holding out his arms.  He expected that she would fall into them.

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Count Hannibal from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.