At these words, which brought back to her memory her crime on the battle-field of La Fere, she shrank back, her eyes seemed to sink into their sockets, and as I loosed my hold of her shoulder she fell in a huddled heap on the flags of the yard. CHAPTER XVI A COUNCIL OF WAR As I slipped through the wicket I cast a hurried glance around me, and then, acting on the impulse of the moment, ran forwards along the road for about fifty paces, with Babette's dagger clenched in my hand. There I was brought to a stand by a dead wall, studded with iron spikes at the top, which rose sheer above me for fully twenty feet and barred all further progress. It was evident that the Toison d'Or stood in a blind alley, and that I had taken the wrong turning. Not even an ape could have scaled the moss-grown and slippery surface of those stones, and, leaning against a buttress in the darkest corner of the wall, I stood for a moment or so and waited, determined to sell my life as dearly as possible should I be pursued. There was no sound, however; all was still as the grave. I ran my eye down the road, but the moon was not bright enough to penetrate the shadows, and I could make out nothing except the many-storied and gabled buildings that, packed closely to each other, beetled over the passage. The hanging turrets projecting from these houses were for all the world like gigantic wasps' nests, such as are seen clinging to the rocks of the upper Dordogne. Here and there a turret window showed a light glimmering behind it, and, had I time, I might have pictured to myself a resemblance between this 'beetle-browed' passage to that of some long, narrow, and sluggish mountain tarn, guarded on each side by an impassable barrier of frowning rocks. It was, however, not a moment to let oneself be impressed by scenery, and, eyes and ears on the stretch, I peered into the indistinct light to see the slightest movement, to catch the slightest sound. But the silence remained undisturbed. It was an eyrie of night-hawks, and they were hunting now far from their nests. So I stole forth from the shadow of the buttress, and, keeping the dagger ready to strike, retraced my steps past the Toison d'Or and along the winding and crooked passage, keeping as far away from the walls as possible to avoid any sudden attack, until at last I found myself in a cross street, down which I went, taking note of such landmarks as I could to guide me back, when I should return with vengeance in my right hand. The cross street led into other winding and twisting lanes, whose squalid inhabitants were either flitting up and down, or quarrelling amongst themselves, or else sitting in a sullen silence. I guessed I had got myself into one of the very worst parts of Paris, and as I had heard that it was more than dangerous to be recognised in such places as one not belonging to the noble order of cut-purses, I did not halt to make inquiries, but