Now I think of it,
there is a brace of birds hung up in the stone gallery; go fetch them,
Jacques, we will have them dressed.”

The Count now made enquiry, concerning the method of pursuing the chace
among the rocks and precipices of these romantic regions, and was
listening to a curious detail, when a horn was sounded at the gate. Blanche looked timidly at her father, who continued to converse on the
subject of the chace, but whose countenance was somewhat expressive of
anxiety, and who often turned his eyes towards that part of the hall
nearest the gate. The horn sounded again, and a loud halloo succeeded. “These are some of our companions, returned from their day’s labour,”
said a man, going lazily from his seat towards the gate; and in a few
minutes, two men appeared, each with a gun over his shoulder, and
pistols in his belt. “What cheer, my lads? what cheer?” said they, as
they approached. “What luck?” returned their companions: “have you
brought home your supper? You shall have none else.”

“Hah! who the devil have you brought home?” said they in bad Spanish,
on perceiving the Count’s party, “are they from France, or Spain?—where
did you meet with them?”

“They met with us, and a merry meeting too,” replied his companion
aloud in good French. “This chevalier, and his party, had lost their
way, and asked a night’s lodging in the fort.” The others made no
reply, but threw down a kind of knapsack, and drew forth several brace
of birds. The bag sounded heavily as it fell to the ground, and the
glitter of some bright metal within glanced on the eye of the Count,
who now surveyed, with a more enquiring look, the man, that held the
knapsack. He was a tall robust figure, of a hard countenance, and had
short black hair, curling in his neck. Instead of the hunter’s dress,
he wore a faded military uniform; sandals were laced on his broad legs,
and a kind of short trowsers hung from his waist. On his head he wore a
leathern cap, somewhat resembling in shape an ancient Roman helmet; but
the brows that scowled beneath it, would have characterised those of
the barbarians, who conquered Rome, rather than those of a Roman
soldier. The Count, at length, turned away his eyes, and remained
silent and thoughtful, till, again raising them, he perceived a figure
standing in an obscure part of the hall, fixed in attentive gaze on St.
Foix, who was conversing with Blanche, and did not observe this; but
the Count, soon after, saw the same man looking over the shoulder of
the soldier as attentively at himself. He withdrew his eye, when that
of the Count met it, who felt mistrust gathering fast upon his mind,
but feared to betray it in his countenance, and, forcing his features
to assume a smile, addressed Blanche on some indifferent subject. When
he again looked round, he perceived, that the soldier and his companion
were gone. The man, who was called Jacques, now returned from the stone gallery. “A fire is lighted there,” said he, “and the birds are dressing; the
table too is spread there, for that place is warmer than this.”

His companions approved of the removal, and invited their guests to
follow to the gallery, of whom Blanche appeared distressed, and
remained seated, and St. Foix looked at the Count, who said, he
preferred the comfortable blaze of the fire he was then near. The
hunters, however, commended the warmth of the other apartment, and
pressed his removal with such seeming courtesy, that the Count, half
doubting, and half fearful of betraying his doubts, consented to go. The long and ruinous passages, through which they went, somewhat
daunted him, but the thunder, which now burst in loud peals above, made
it dangerous to quit this place of shelter, and he forbore to provoke
his conductors by showing that he distrusted them. The hunters led the
way, with a lamp; the Count and St. Foix, who wished to please their
hosts by some instances of familiarity, carried each a seat, and
Blanche followed, with faltering steps. As she passed on, part of her
dress caught on a nail in the wall, and, while she stopped, somewhat
too scrupulously, to disengage it, the Count, who was talking to St.
Foix, and neither of whom observed the circumstance, followed their
conductor round an abrupt angle of the passage, and Blanche was left
behind in darkness. The thunder prevented them from hearing her call
but, having disengaged her dress, she quickly followed, as she thought,
the way they had taken. A light, that glimmered at a distance,
confirmed this belief, and she proceeded towards an open door, whence
it issued, conjecturing the room beyond to be the stone gallery the men
had spoken of. Hearing voices as she advanced, she paused within a few
paces of the chamber, that she might be certain whether she was right,
and from thence, by the light of a lamp, that hung from the ceiling,
observed four men, seated round a table, over which they leaned in
apparent consultation. In one of them she distinguished the features of
him, whom she had observed, gazing at St. Foix, with such deep
attention; and who was now speaking in an earnest, though restrained
voice, till, one of his companions seeming to oppose him, they spoke
together in a loud and harsher tone. Blanche, alarmed by perceiving
that neither her father, nor St. Foix were there, and terrified at the
fierce countenances and manners of these men, was turning hastily from
the chamber, to pursue her search of the gallery, when she heard one of
the men say:

“Let all dispute end here. Who talks of danger? Follow my advice, and
there will be none—secure _them_, and the rest are an easy prey.”
Blanche, struck with these words, paused a moment, to hear more. “There
is nothing to be got by the rest,” said one of his companions, “I am
never for blood when I can help it—dispatch the two others, and our
business is done; the rest may go.”

“May they so?” exclaimed the first ruffian, with a tremendous
oath—“What! to tell how we have disposed of their masters, and to send
the king’s troops to drag us to the wheel! You were always a choice
adviser—I warrant we have not yet forgot St. Thomas’s eve last year.”

Blanche’s heart now sunk with horror. Her first impulse was to retreat
from the door, but, when she would have gone, her trembling frame
refused to support her, and, having tottered a few paces, to a more
obscure part of the passage, she was compelled to listen to the
dreadful councils of those, who, she was no longer suffered to doubt,
were banditti. In the next moment, she heard the following words, “Why
you would not murder the whole _gang?_”

“I warrant our lives are as good as theirs,” replied his comrade. “If
we don’t kill them, they will hang us: better they should die than we
be hanged.”

“Better, better,” cried his comrades.