Meanwhile, as now the full night was upon them, the hubbub and the uproar grew greater in the inn. Back from the booths and open-air theatres came the mummers and the mountebanks, the mendicant friars with their pills and potions, balsams, styptics, and ointments, the Norman and Flemish horse dealers--the latter drunk and shouting for more drink--and all the rest. And they distributed themselves about the _Croix Blanche_, as, indeed, they were doing in every other hostelry in Amiens, and laughed and shrieked and howled and cursed as they sought their beds in the straw or the garrets, and turned the ancient city into a veritable pandemonium. "I will walk with you a part of the way," said Douglas to his brother and Bertie as they rose to depart. "This narrow street is hot and stuffy, especially with the fumes that arise from the revellers below. The night air will be cool and refreshing before sleep." And buckling on his sword he went down with them, and out through the still crowded inn yard. At the Jesuit College he parted with Archibald, and went on a little farther with Bertie, and then, saying that he was refreshed with the coolness, bade him also good-night. "It is good for us all to be together again, Bertie, boy, is it not?" he exclaimed as they shook each other by the hand; "good to think that, with but a few intervals of separation when on service, we shall scarcely ever be parted more. Nothing is wanting now but that you and Kate could come together lawfully." "That," replied the other, "seems never likely to be permitted to us. Well, we must bear it, hard as it is. Yet, Douglas, I am as honestly glad as you can be that we are safe back in France with all our troubles over." "Yes," replied Douglas, "with our troubles over. Yet I wonder where that rogue ingrain, Fordingbridge, is?" He was soon to know. CHAPTER XVI. "TREASON HAS DONE HIS WORST." Some of those who came to Amiens as attendants upon the fair had not yet sought their beds, whether in the straw of the stables, on the brick floors of the kitchens, or in the sweltering garrets under the red-tiled roofs. Night birds, however, were most of these, creatures who found their account in roaming the streets, seeking whom they might devour. Night birds, such as the bellowing, red-faced bullies who had been shouting all day for drink and food in the _Croix Blanche_, and who, managing to keep sober in spite of all their potations, sallied forth at midnight. For it was then their work began. Then horse dealers, merchants, buyers, dissolute members of the local _bourgeoisie_ and the _petite noblesse_, making their way to their lodgings or houses, found themselves suddenly seized by the throat or from behind, and their watches, trinkets and rings taken from them and their purses cut--nay, might deem themselves fortunate if their throats were not cut too.