With a glare of something like madness in his eyes, Charles
raised his hand, and with a shaking finger singled him out.
"So, by G-d, you are there!" he cried, with a volley of blasphemy. And
he signed to those about Count Hannibal to stand away from him. "You are
there, are you? And you are not afraid to show your face? I tell you,
it's you and such as you bring us into contempt! so that it is said
everywhere Guise does all and serves God, and we follow because we must!
It's you, and such as you, are stumbling-blocks to our good folk of
Paris! Are you traitor, sirrah?" he continued with passion, "or are you
of our brother Alencon's opinions, that you traverse our orders to the
damnation of your soul and our discredit? Are you traitor? Or are you
heretic? Or what are you? God in heaven, will you answer me, man, or
shall I send you where you will find your tongue?"
"I know not of what your Majesty accuses me," Count Hannibal answered,
with a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders.
"I? 'Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair hung damp on his brow, and
he dried his hands continually; while his gestures had the ill-measured
and eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you! Speak, father, and
confound him!"
Then Tavannes discovered on the farther side of the circle the priest
whom his brother had ridden down that morning.
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