That was the fear in Blondel's mind; the alarm was growing louder each moment, and drawing nearer. And then in a twinkling, in two or three sentences, Basterga put that fear into the second place, and set in its seat emotions that brooked no rival. "Why not both?" he said, jeering. "Live and be Syndic, both? Because you had the scholar's ill, eh, Messer Blondel? Or because your physician _said_ you had it--to whom I paid a good price--for the advice?" The devil seemed to look out of the man's eyes, as he spoke in short sentences, each pointed, each conveying a heart-stab to its hearer. "To whom--you gave?" Blondel muttered, his eyes dilated. "A good price--for the advice! A good price to tell you, you had it." The magistrate's face swelled till it was almost purple, his hands gripped the front of his coat, and pressed hard against his breast. "But--the pains?" he muttered. "Did you--but no," with a frightful grimace, "you lie! you lie!" "Did I bribe him--to give you those too?" the other answered, with a ruthless laugh. "You have alighted on it, most grave and reverend sage. You have alighted on the exact fact, so clever are you! That was precisely what I did some months back, after I heard that you, being fearful as rich men are, had been to him for some fancied ill. You had two medicines? You remember? The one gave, the other soothed your trouble. And now that you understand, now that your mind is free from care, and you can sleep without fear of the scholar's ill--will you not thank me for your cure, Messer Blondel?" "Thank you?" the magistrate panted. "Thank you?" He stepped back two paces, groping with his hands, as if he sought to support himself by the table from which he had advanced. "Ay, thank me!" "No, but I will pay you!" and with the word Blondel snatched from the table a pistol which he had laid within his reach an hour earlier. Before the giant, confident in his size, discovered his danger, the muzzle was at his breast. It was too late to move then--three paces divided the men; but, in his haste to raise the pistol, Blondel had not shaken from it the handkerchief under which he had hidden it, and the lock fell on a morsel of the stuff. The next moment Basterga's huge hand struck aside the useless weapon, and flung Blondel gasping against the wall.