Their cries drowned his words. A score of hands threatened him. Without looking, he felt that the Bat and his troopers, a little clump apart, were preparing to intervene, and he knew that on his next movement all depended. The pale faces behind him he could not see, for he was aware that if his eye left his opponents, they would fall upon him. At any second a hurried gesture, or the least sign of fear might unloose the torrent, and well was it for all that in many a like scene his nerve had been tempered to hardness. He shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, "you shall have your hostages." "Ay, ay!" A sudden relaxation, a falling back into quietude of the seething mass approved the consent. "You shall have my lieutenant," he continued, "and----" "And I will be the other," cried Roger manfully. He stepped forward. "I am the son of M. le Vicomte there! I will be your hostage," he repeated. But the smith, turning to his followers, grinned. "We'd be little the better for them," he said. "Eh? No, Sir Governor! We must have our choice!" "Your choice, rogues?" "Ay, we'll have the pick!" the crowd shouted. "The best of the basket!" Amid ferocious laughter. Des Ageaux had suspected for some hours past that he had done a foolish, a fatally foolish thing in trusting these men, whom no man had ever trusted. He saw now that only two courses stood open to him. He might strike the smith down at his feet, and risk all on the effect which the act might have on his followers; or he might yield what they asked, allow them to choose their hostages, and trust to time and skill for the rest. His instincts were all for the bolder course, but he had women behind him, and their chance in a conflict so unequal must be desperate. With a quietness and firmness characteristic of the man he accepted his defeat. "Very well," he said. "It matters nothing. Whom will you have?" "We'll have you," the smith replied grinning, "and her!" With a grimy hand he pointed to the little Countess who with Bonne's arm about her and Fulbert at her elbow was staring fascinated at the line of savage faces. "You cannot have a lady!" the Lieutenant answered with a chill at his heart. "Ay, but it is she who has the riders who are coming!" the smith retorted shrewdly. "It is her we want and it is her we'll have! We'll do her no harm, and she may have her own hut on our side, and her woman with her, and a man if she pleases. And you may have a hut beside hers, if one," with a wink, "won't do for the two." "But, man," des Ageaux cried, his brow dark, "how can I take Vlaye and his castle while I lie a hostage?" "Oh, you shall go to and fro, to and fro, Sir Governor!" the smith answered lightly. "We'll not be too strict if you are there of nights. And we will know ourselves safe. And as we live by bread," he continued stoutly, "we'll do her no harm if faith be kept with us!"