Instantly the elbow of Guy Launay sought the side of the Abbé John, called alternatively the Spaniard, and made him gasp.
"D'ye see that?" whispered Guy, "the old rascal has locked the door. He suspects. Come, we may as well trip it. We shan't get either the sword-cane nor yet the pistols and bullets on the top of the guard-robe. My milk-brother, Stephen, saw them there when he took his week of chamber-valeting Old Peace-with-Honour!"
"Screw up your mouth tight!" said the Abbé John politely; "a deal of nonsense will get spread about otherwise. I will attend to everything in the room of Old Blessings-of-Peace!"
"You!"
"Yes, I wait and see. Get out your tablets and take notes spread your elbows, man! Do as I do, and the blessing of Saint Nicholas of Padua be upon all thieves and rascals of whom we are two choice specimens!"
"Speak for yourself, Spaniard!" spluttered the other, having accidentally sucked the wrong end of his pen; "my uncle is not a cardinal, and as to my father "
"He sells hanks of yarn, and cheats in the measurement!"
"I dare you to say so, you left-hand prince, you grease-spot on the cardinal's purple you "
"That will do," said the Abbé John calmly; "to-morrow I will give you thwacks when and where you like. But now listen, mark, learn, and in any case keep our good Master Anatole from so frequently glancing at that door. One would think he had the devil shut up within!"
"Impossible quite impossible; he is loose and exceedingly busy outside there! Listen to the shots," said Guy, inclining an ear to the window.
Crack crack! Bang!
The windows rattled.
"Hurrah for the People's Duke! Down with the King! Death to the Huguenots! to the Barbets! to the English! Death! Death! Death!"
"Lively down there I wish we were up and away!" mourned the son of the ex-provost of the merchants, "but without arms and ammunition, what can fellows do?"
"As sayeth the Wise Man" the voice of the Professor of Eloquence began to quicken into its stride "'all her main roads are pleasant roads; and her very by-paths, her sentiers , lead to peace!'"
"If we could only get at those pistols and things!" murmured Guy Launay. "I wager you a groat that the old man is mistaken! Oh, just hearken to them outside there, will you? Peace is a chafing-dish. War is the great sport!"
"Down with the King! Bring along those chains for the barricade! Students to the rescue!"
Then came up to their ears the blithe marching song, the time strongly marked:
"Keys of Sainted Peter!" moaned Guy Launay, "I cannot stand this. I am going down, though I have no better weapon than a barrel-stave."
And he hummed, rapping on the inscribed and whittled bench with his fingers, the refrain of the famous League song:
And by this time the Spaniard, otherwise the Abbé John, was crawling stealthily towards the locked door. Guy Launay, on the contrary, was breathing hard, rustling leaves, taking notes for two, both elbows working. The Master was in the full rush of his discourse. He saw nothing, knew nothing. He had forgotten the robing-room in the affirmation that, "In the midst of turmoil, the truly philosophic may, and often does, preserve the true peace the truest of all, peace of mind, peace of conscience."
Bang!
There was a tremendous explosion immediately under the window.
"The King's men blowing up a barricade!" thought the Abbé John, with his hand on the great flat key, but drawing back a little. "If that does not wake him up, nothing will."
But the gentle, even voice went on, triumphing the periods so familiar to the lecturer ringing out more clearly than ever. "Wars shall cease only when Wisdom, which is God, shall prevail. Philosophy is at one with Religion. The Thousand Years shall come a thousand times over and on the earth shall reign "
The key gritted in the lock. The Abbé John disappeared behind the heavy curtain which hid the door of the robing-room.
The next moment he found himself in the presence of a man, lying rigidly on the Professor's table, all among the books and papers, and of the fairest young girl the Abbé John had ever seen, gently closing eyes which would never more look out upon the world.
Within, the Professor's voice droned on, discoursing of peace, righteousness, and eternal law. The great Day of the Barricades rattled and thundered without. Acrid blasts of sulphurous reek drove into the quiet room, and the Abbé John, speechless with amazement, looked into the wet eyes of this wonderful vision the purest, the loveliest, the most forlorn maid in France.
CHAPTER II. CLAIRE AGNEW
For a moment nothing was said, but the Abbé John recovered himself first.
"He knows you are here?" he questioned, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.