“If!” Tavannes retorted.  “At least, if there be, there be gibbets too!  And I see necks!” he added, leaning forward.  “Necks!” And then, with a look of flame, “Let no man leave this table until I return,” he cried, “or he will have to deal with me.  Nay,” he continued, changing his tone abruptly, as the prudence, which never entirely left him—­and perhaps the remembrance of the other’s fifty spearmen—­sobered him in the midst of his rage, “I am hasty.  I mean not you, M. de Montsoreau!  Ride where you will; ride with me, if you will, and I will thank you.  Only remember, until midnight Angers is mine!”

He was still speaking when he moved from the table, and, leaving all staring after him, strode down the room.  An instant he paused on the threshold and looked back; then he passed out, and clattered down the stone stairs.  His horse and riders were waiting, but, his foot in the stirrup, he stayed for a word with Bigot.

“Is it so?” he growled.

The Norman did not speak, but pointed towards the Place Ste.-Croix, whence an occasional shot made answer for him.

In those days the streets of the Black City were narrow and crooked, overhung by timber houses, and hampered by booths; nor could Tavannes from the old Town Hall—­now abandoned—­see the Place Ste.-Croix.  But that he could cure.  He struck spurs to his horse, and, followed by his ten horsemen, he clattered noisily down the paved street.  A dozen groups hurrying the same way sprang panic-stricken to the walls, or saved themselves in doorways.  He was up with them, he was beyond them!  Another hundred yards, and he would see the Place.

And then, with a cry of rage, he drew rein a little, discovering what was before him.  In the narrow gut of the way a great black banner, borne on two poles, was lurching towards him.  It was moving in the van of a dark procession of priests, who, with their attendants and a crowd of devout, filled the street from wall to wall.  They were chanting one of the penitential psalms, but not so loudly as to drown the uproar in the Place beyond them.

They made no way, and Count Hannibal swore furiously, suspecting treachery.  But he was no madman, and at the moment the least reflection would have sent him about to seek another road.  Unfortunately, as he hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of warning to his horse’s head and seized it; and Tavannes, mistaking the motive of the act, lost his self-control.  He struck the fellow down, and, with a reckless word, rode headlong into the procession, shouting to the black robes to make way, make way!  A cry, nay, a shriek of horror, answered him and rent the air.  And in a minute the thing was done.  Too late, as the Bishop’s Vicar, struck by his horse, fell screaming under its hoofs—­too late, as the consecrated vessels which he had been bearing rolled in the mud, Tavannes saw that they bore the canopy and the Host!