They were four to one, but I laughed to see how, not abruptly, but shamefacedly and by degrees, they came to a stand halfway up the flight, and looked at me, measuring the steps and the advantage which the light shining in their eyes gave me. Fresnoy’s ugly face was rendered uglier by a great strip of plaister which marked the place where the hilt of my sword had struck him in our last encounter at Chize; and this and the hatred he bore to me gave a peculiar malevolence to his look. The deaf man Matthew, whose savage stolidity had more than once excited my anger on our journey, came next to him, the two strangers whom I had seen in the hall bringing up the rear. Of the four, these last seemed the most anxious to come to blows, and had Fresnoy not barred the way with his hand we should have crossed swords without parley. ‘Halt, will you!’ he cried, with an oath, thrusting one of them back. And then to me he said, ‘So, so, my friend! It is you, is it?’ I looked at him in silence, with a scorn which knew no bounds, and did not so much as honour him by raising my sword, though I watched him heedfully. ‘What are you doing here? he continued, with an attempt at bluster. Still I would not answer him, or move, but stood looking down at him. After a moment of this, he grew restive, his temper being churlish and impatient at the best. Besides, I think he retained just so much of a gentleman’s feelings as enabled him to understand my contempt and smart under it. He moved a step upward, his brow dark with passion. ‘You beggarly son of a scarecrow!’ he broke out on a sudden, adding a string of foul imprecations, ‘will you speak, or are you going to wait to be spitted where you stand? If we once begin, my bantam, we shall not stop until we have done your business! If you have anything to say, say it, and--’ But I omit the rest of his speech, which was foul beyond the ordinary. Still I did not move or speak, but looked at him unwavering, though it pained me to think the women heard. He made a last attempt.’ Come, old friend,’ he said, swallowing his anger again, or pretending to do so, and speaking with a vile bonhomie which I knew to be treacherous, ‘if we come to blows we shall give you no quarter. But one chance you shall have, for the sake of old days when we followed Conde. Go! Take the chance, and go. We will let you pass, and that broken door shall be the worst of it. That is more,’ he added with a curse, ‘than I would do for any other man in your place, M. de Marsac.’