"By Bacchus, the god of wine, and by Morpheus, the god of slumbers!" cried the student, "I am as certain that I am wide awake as that I am not drunk! I saw the Regent with my two eyes step into the vessel, and with my two ears I heard the Regent say to the friend who accompanied him: 'I leave this accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' Is that clear enough? Moreover, would I dare come here and tell yarns to Master Marcel, whom I admire and respect as much as any one could? And above all when, in the teeth of the privileges of the University, he had me housed at the Chatelet, together with my chum Nicholas the Thin-skinned because of the racket we made one night on the street?" Noticing that despite certain irrelevant details of his report, the people in the chamber began to attach faith to his words, Rufin continued, while Marcel seemed racked with painful astonishment and a prey to overpowering indignation: "As I was telling you, I had an assignation with my wench Margot, on the river bank, outside the barriers. Tired of waiting in vain for this fallacious creature, I was about to leave when I perceived a lighted lantern on the other side of the barrier and just under the postern of the Louvre. Knowing as well as anybody that the vaulted corridor of that issue runs out on one of the stairs of the large tower, a suspicion flashed through my mind. The night was silent. At the risk of drowning and of going to Pluto to meet Margot, only this time on the borders of the Styx, I reached the stairs by clambering along the poles and the chain of the barriers. At that moment the bearer of the lantern, who must have meant to make sure that the vessel was there, re-entered the palace. I slid along the wall of the Louvre up to the postern and there, screened by the gate which was left open, I soon heard a voice saying: 'Come, come, Sire; the vessel and the two boats are near the shore.' At which the Regent answered in the way I have just stated to Master Marcel--'I leave the accursed town, and I swear not to set foot in it again until Marcel, the councilmen and the other chiefs of rebels shall have paid with their heads for their insolent audacity and for the revolt of these accursed Parisians.' The Regent and his companion marched quietly to the bank of the river, and soon the sound of oars told me that the boat was leaving rapidly. It vanished in the darkness of the night." Turning to Jocelyn with a triumphant air, the student remarked: "Well, what did I tell you this morning? You took me for a fool! And now you see the Regent has fled from Paris threatening the inhabitants with vengeance! By the bowels of the Pope! The belief in fatalism is a great thing!"