"Well," I said, silencing him by a gesture, "is that all?"

"No," he replied; "I have tasted the men's wine."

"And it is drugged?"

"No," he said. "On the contrary, it is a great deal too good for the
price--or the house. And you ordered a litre apiece. Some have had
two, and not asked twice for it!"

"Ho, ho!" I said, staring at him. "Are you sure of that?"

"Quite!" he said.

I was genuinely startled at last; but Parabere still made light of it.
"What!" he said. "Are we a pack of nervous women, or one poor
traveller in a solitary inn, that we see shadows and shake at them?"

"The inn is solitary enough," Boisrueil grumbled.

"But we are twenty swords!" Parabere retorted, opening his eyes wide.
"Why, I have ridden all day in an enemy's country with less!"

"And been beaten with more at Craon."

"But, man alive, that was in a battle, and by an army!"

"Well, and there may be a battle and an army here," Boisrueil answered
sulkily.

I was inclined to laugh at this as extravagance; but seeing that La
Font and Colet sided with Boisrueil, I remembered that the latter was
no coward though a great gossip; and I thought better of it.
Accordingly, resolving to look into the thing myself, I bade La Font
fetch a couple of lanthorns, and, when he had done so, went out with
him and Boisrueil as if I had a mind to go round the horses before I
retired. Parabere declined to accompany me on the ground that he would
not be at the pains of it; and Colet I left in the kitchen to keep an
eye on the man and woman.

There was no moon, rain was still falling, and the yard, crowded with
steaming, shivering horses, was dreary enough where the lanthorns
displayed it; but, accustomed to such a sight, I made, without
regarding it, for the gate, which a moment's examination showed to be
barricaded, as they had described, with great beams and stones. In
this there was nothing beyond the ordinary, one entrance to a house
being in troublous times better than two; but Boisrueil, bidding me
kneel and look lower, I found, when I did so, that the soil under the
beams--which did not touch the ground by some inches--was wet, and I
began to understand. When he asked me at what hour rain had begun to
fall, I answered two in the afternoon, and drew at once the inference
at which he aimed--that the beams had been put there, and the gate
barricaded, at some later hour.

"We reached here at six," he said; "it was done some time bet