But with a laugh of derision the drunken man cut him short. "Savoy here--on the wall!" he hiccoughed. "And we on guard!" "It is so!" Claude urged. "Believe me, it is so! And we must be wary." "You lie, young man! And I'll--hic--I'll prove it! See here! Savoy on the wall, indeed! Savoy? And we on guard?" He lurched in two strides to the outer door, seized it, and supported himself by it. Claude leant forward to stop him, but could not reach, being on the other side of the table. He called to the other to do so. "Stop him!" he said. "Stop him!" The man might have done so, but he did not stir; and "Stop him?" the sot answered, his hand on the door. "Not--two of you--will stop him! Now, then! Savoy, indeed! On the wall? I'll show you!" He let the door go, and reeled three paces into the darkness outside, waving his hands as if he drove chickens. "Savoy! Savoy!" he cried; but whether in drunken bravado, in derision, or in pure disbelief, God only knows! For the word had barely passed his lips the second time before a gurgling scream followed, freezing the hearts of the two listeners; and, before the second guard could close the door or move from his place on the hearth, four men sprang in out of the darkness, and bore him back. Before he had struck a blow they had pinned him against the wall. Claude owed his escape to his position behind the door. They did not see him as they sprang in, intent on the one they did see. He knew resistance to be futile, and a bound carried him into the darkness of the cork-screw staircase. Once there, he dared not move. Thence he saw and heard what followed. The man pinned against the wall, with the point of a knife flickering before his eyes, begged piteously for his life. "Then silence!" Basterga answered--for the foremost who had entered was he. "A word and you die!" "Better let me finish him at once!" Grio growled. The prisoner's face was ashen, his eyes were starting from his head. "Dead men give no alarms." "Mercy! Mercy!" the man gasped. "Ay, ay, let him live," Basterga said good-naturedly. "But he must be gagged. Turn your face to the wall, my man!" The poor wretch complied with gratitude. In a twinkling the Paduan's huge fingers closed round his neck, and over his wind-pipe. "Now strike," the big man hissed. "He will make no noise!" With a sickening thud Grio's knife sank between the shoulders, a moment the body writhed in Basterga's herculean grip, then it sank lifeless to the floor. "Had you struck him, fool," Basterga muttered wrathfully, wiping a little blood from his sleeve, "as you wanted to strike him, he had squealed like a pig! Now 'tis the same, and no noise. Ha! Seize him!"