“Sacr-r-re!” cried a shrill voice, in tones of indignant remonstrance. “What do you mean, monsieur? Are you drunk, or crazy, that you come running head foremost into peaceable citizens, and throwing them heels uppermost on the king's highway! Stand off, sir! And think yourself lucky that I don't run you through with my dirk for such an insult!” At the first sound of the outraged treble tones, Sir Norman had started back and glared upon the speaker with much the same expression of countenance as an incensed tiger. The orator of the spirited address had stooped to pick up his plumed cap, and recover his centre of gravity, which was considerably knocked out of place by the unexpected collision, and held forth with very flashing eyes, and altogether too angry to recognize his auditor. Sir Norman waited until he had done, and then springing at him, grabbed him by the collar. “You young hound!” he exclaimed, fairly lifting him off his feet with one hand, and shaking him as if he would have wriggled him out of hose and doublet. “You infernal young jackanapes! I'll run you through in less than two minutes, if you don't tell me where you have taken her.” The astonishment, not to say consternation, of Master Hubert for that small young gentleman and no other it was--on thus having his ideas thus shaken out of him, was unbounded, and held him perfectly speechless, while Sir Norman glared at him and shook him in a way that would have instantaneously killed him if his looks were lightning. The boy had recognized his aggressor, and after his first galvanic shock, struggled like a little hero to free himself, and at last succeeded by an artful spring. “Sir Norman Kingsley,” he cried, keeping a safe yard or two of pavement between him and that infuriated young knight, “have you gone mad, or what, is Heaven's name, is the meaning of all this?” “It means,” exclaimed Sir Norman, drawing his sword, and flourishing it within an inch of the boy's curly head,--“that you'll be a dead page in less than half a minute, unless you tell me immediately where she has been taken to.” “Where who has been taken to?” inquired Hubert, opening his bright and indignant black eyes in a way that reminded Sir Norman forcibly of Leoline. “Pardon, monsieur, I don't understand at all.” “You young villain! Do you mean to stand up there and tell me to my face that you have not searched for her, and found her, and have carried her off?” “Why, do you mean the lady we were talking of, that was saved from the river?” asked Hubert, a new light dawning upon him. “Do I mean the lady we were talking of?” repeated Sir Norman, with another furious flourish of his sword. “Yes, I do mean the lady we were talking of; and what's more--I mean to pin you where you stand, against that wall, unless you tell me, instantly, where she has been taken.”