As it was, a hail of stones poured
on the front of the inn, and amid the rising yells of the rabble there
presently floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of the great
bell of St.-Maurice.
CHAPTER XXX. SACRILEGE!
M. de Montsoreau, Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur almost rose from his seat
in his astonishment.
"What! No letters?" he cried, a hand on either arm of the chair.
The Magistrates stared, one and all. "No letters?" they muttered.
And "No letters?" the Provost chimed in more faintly.
Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council table. He alone was
unmoved.
"No," he said. "I bear none."
M. de Montsoreau, who, travel-stained and in his corselet, had the second
place of honour at the foot of the table, frowned.
"But, M. le Comte," he said, "my instructions from Monsieur were to
proceed to carry out his Majesty's will in co-operation with you, who, I
understood, would bring letters _de par le Roi_."
"I had letters," Count Hannibal answered negligently. "But on the way I
mislaid them."
"Mislaid them?" Montsoreau cried, unable to believe his ears; while the
smaller dignitaries of the city, the magistrates and churchmen who sat on
either side of the table, gaped open-mouthed. It was incredible! It was
unbelievable! Mislay the King's letters! Who had ever heard of such a
thing?
"Yes, I mislaid them.
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