Part 2 (1/2)
”The hour is unearthly,” answered Bathsheba, uneasily. ”It is past midnight. This lonely street has long since been deserted. May it not be our lookout come to warn us of the approach of some peril?”
”No, our lookout would have given the established signal,” answered the Jew. ”I'll go see what it may be.”
And taking the lamp, he pa.s.sed out of the chamber.
CHAPTER II.
REVOLUTIONARY EFFERVESCENCE.
Lamp in hand, Samuel approached the wicket gate. The light he carried revealed to him standing outside a lackey in a livery of orange and green, trimmed with silver lace. The fellow, swaying unsteadily on his feet, and with the air of one half-seas over with drink, knocked again, violently.
”Ho, friend!” cried Samuel. ”Don't knock so hard! Perhaps you mistake the house.”
”I--I knock how I please,” returned the lackey in a thick voice. ”Open the door--right off. I want to come in--gallows-bird!”
”Whom do you wish?”
”You do not want to open; dog of Jewry! Swine! My master will beat you to death with his stick. He said to me: 'Carry--this letter to Samuel the Jew--and above all--rascal--do not tarry at the inn!' So I want to get in to your dog-kennel, you devil of a Jew!”
”May I ask your master's name?”
”My master is Monseigneur the Count of Plouernel, colonel in the Guards.
You know him well. You have before now lent him money--triple Arab!--according to what my lord's steward says--and at good interest, too.”
”Have you your master's letter?”
”Yes--pig! And so, open. If not--I'll break in the gate.”
”Then pa.s.s me the letter through the wicket, and hurry about it. Else I shall go in and leave you as you are.”
”Mule! Isn't he stubborn, that animal!” grumbled the lackey as he shoved the letter through the grating. ”I must have an answer, good and quick, I was told,” he added.
”When I have read the letter,” replied Samuel.
”To make me wait outside the door--like a dog!” muttered the tipsy servingman. ”Me, the first lackey of my lord!”
Samuel, without paying the least attention to the impertinences of the lackey, read the letter of the Count of Plouernel by the light of his lamp, and then answered:
”Say to your master that I shall visit him to-morrow morning at his rooms. Your errand is done. You may leave.”
”You won't give me a written answer?”
”No, the reply I have just given you will suffice.”
Leaving the valet outside to fume his wrath away, Samuel refastened the wicket and returned to the room where he had left his wife. Bathsheba said to him, with some uneasiness:
”My friend, did I not hear a threatening voice?”