“Liar and traitor,” he said, in a voice shaking with rage, “what bravado brought you here I cannot guess, or what hope you could have had that once my hand was on you, you could escape my vengeance!” I stood staring at him with open mouth. Had he too gone mad? “Were it not for this wound which crazes me,” he went on after a moment, “I would have you hung this instant. But I myself am hungering to see you kick your life out at a rope’s end, so we will defer that pleasure till to-morrow. Take him, men!” he added, and stepped suddenly away from me. They came on with a yell, and I had but time to slash open the face of the first one, when they had me down, and I thought for a moment would tear me limb from limb. But their master quieted them with the flat of his sword as he would have quieted a pack of hounds. “To the lower dungeon with him!” he cried, and stood watching as they dragged me away, his hands to his face, his eyes dark with pain and rage. I would have spoken even then, and the words might have saved me, but that d’Aurilly clapped his hand upon my mouth, and with a curse bade me hold my tongue. Out into the hall they dragged me, using me more roughly now that they were from under their master’s eyes, and down a long flight of steps. At the stair-foot they paused a moment and I heard the rattle of bolts. A door was clanged back and I was pitched forward into the inky pit beyond. CHAPTER III I FIND THE KEY TO THE PUZZLE I LAY for some time where I had fallen, nursing my bruises and reflecting with bitterness upon the singular gratitude of princes. I was dazed by the suddenness, the unexpectedness, of it all. What had I done that I should be treated so? And then, in a breath, a flash of light broke in upon me and brought me to my feet. What was it Letourge had said, “He will finish the work he began in the Rue Gogard.” The Rue Gogard--but that was where I had met Claire. Could it be that it was Letourge and M. le Comte whom I had resisted there; that it was into the face of M. le Comte himself that white-hot iron had seared? I shuddered as I recalled the hiss of the iron into his flesh, the smell of burning, his cry of agony! Small wonder he should thirst for vengeance! Death on the gibbet would be merciful beside the torture which he had suffered and which he must suffer still. I sat down again to think it out. Yes, there could be no doubt of it--I had been blind not to see it before. The man in armor had been styled “M. le Comte” in Duval’s room; he had called his companion Gaspard, and it was Gaspard whom he had cursed from his bed. Gaspard, of course, was Letourge. And then Duval’s despair when I had told him who I was--oh, there could be no doubt of it! And, in a flash, I saw the full peril of my position.