a few hours earlier.
There a crowd of men pressed and struggled; but from the spot where he
stood he could see no more. That was enough, however. Rage nerved him,
and despair; his world was dying round him. If he could not save her he
would avenge her. Recklessly he plunged into the tumult; blade in hand,
with vigorous blows he thrust his way through, his white sleeve and the
white cross in his hat gaining him passage until he reached the fringe of
the band who beset the door. Here his first attempt to pass failed; and
he might have remained hampered by the crowd, if a squad of archers had
not ridden up. As they spurred to the spot, heedless over whom they
rode, he clutched a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of
the crowd. In a twinkling he stood on the threshold of the house, face
to face and foot to foot with Count Hannibal, who stood also on the
threshold, but with his back to the door, which, unbarred and unbolted,
gaped open behind him.

CHAPTER V. ROUGH WOOING.

The young man had caught the delirium that was abroad that night. The
rage of the trapped beast was in his heart, his hand held a sword. To
strike blindly, to strike without question the first who withstood him
was the wild-beast instinct; and if Count Hannibal had not spoken on the
instant, the Marshal's brother had said his last word in the world.

Yet as he stood there, a head above the crowd, he seemed unconscious
alike of Tignonville and the point that all but pricked his breast. Swart
and grim-visaged, his harsh features distorted by the glare which shone
upon him, he looked beyond the Huguenot to the sea of tossing arms and
raging faces that surged about the saddles of the horsemen. It was to
these he spoke.

"Begone, dogs!" he cried, in a voice that startled the nearest, "or I
will whip you away with my stirrup-leathers! Do you hear? Begone! This
house is not for you! Burn, kill, plunder where you will, but go hence!"

"But 'tis on the list!" one of the wretches yelled. "'Tis on the list!"
And he pushed forward until he stood at Tignonville's elbow.

"And has no cross!" shrieked another, thrusting himself forward in his
turn. "See you, let us by, whoever you are! In the King's name, kill!
It has no cross!"

"Then," Tavannes thundered, "will I nail you for a cross to the front of
it! No cross, say you? I will make one of you, foul crow!"

And as he spoke, his arm shot out; the man recoiled, his fell