If
_he_ changed as rapidly as this, if so little dependence could be placed
on his moods or his resolutions, who was safe? Whose turn might it not
be to-morrow? Or who might not be held accountable for the deeds done
this day? Many, from whom remorse had seemed far distant a while before,
shuddered and glanced behind them. It was as if the dead who lay stark
without the doors, ay, and the countless dead of Paris, with whose
shrieks the air was laden, had flocked in shadowy shape into the hall;
and there, standing beside their murderers, had whispered with their cold
breath in the living ears, "A reckoning! A reckoning! As I am, thou
shalt be!"
It was Count Hannibal who broke the spell and the silence, and with his
hand on his brother's shoulder stood forward.
"Nay, sire," he cried, in a voice which rang defiant in the roof, and
seemed to challenge alike the living and the dead, "if all deny the deed,
yet will not I! What we have done we have done! So be it! The dead are
dead! So be it! For the rest, your Majesty has still one servant who
will do your will, one soldier whose life is at your disposition! I have
said I will go, and I go, sire. And you, churchman," he continued,
turning in bitter scorn to the priest, "do you go too--to church! To
church, shaveling! Go, watch and pray for us! Fast and flog for us!
Whip those shoulders, whip them till the blood runs down! For it is all,
it seems, you will do for your King!"
Charles turned.
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