"
"Hallo, Monsieur de la Tournoire," came a voice from a group of men
seated at a table. "Come and join us, and show my friends how you
fellows of the French Guards can drink!"
It was De Rilly, very merry with wine.
"I cannot, De Rilly," I replied, stepping into the place. "I have very
important business elsewhere." Then I turned to Jacques and said,
quietly, "Go, at once, to your master, and send your comrade for a
surgeon to follow you there. Do you know the house in which he is?"
The servant made no answer, but turned pale. "Come!" he said to another
servant, who had joined him from an obscure corner of the place. The two
immediately lighted torches and left, from which fact I inferred that
Jacques knew where to find his master.
"What is all this mystery?" cried De Rilly, jovially, rising and coming
over to me, while the man who had opened the door, and who was evidently
the host, closed it and moved away. "Come, warm yourself with a bottle!
Why, my friend, you are as white as a ghost, and you look as if you had
been perspiring blood!"
"I must go, at once, De Rilly. It is a serious matter."
"Then hang me if I don't come, too!" he said, suddenly sobered, and he
grasped his cloak and sword. "That is, unless I should be _de trop_."
"Come. I thank you," I said; and we left the place together.
"Whose blood is it?" asked De Rilly, as we hurried along the narrow
street, back to the house.
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