"Yes."
"And the Count?"
"I left him binding a cut in his wrist."
"Good, friend Roger, though it might have saved trouble if you had made a slit in his heart which could not be bound." And Jean turned aside, and was lost in the shadows.
[CHAPTER XVI]
THE ORDERS FOR RELEASE
On the terrace below the western tower the sentry slowly paced his appointed round, looking down over the city at intervals, and once or twice glancing up at the tower above him, where, clad in his motley of scarlet and green, Jean sat perched upon the battlements. The dawn was two hours old now, and for full two hours the dwarf had sat there, his grave face sadly at variance with his gay dress, and grinning bauble furnished with jingling bells, which he had stuck under his arm. From this western tower was the widest view of Vayenne, and Jean looked over the city and beyond it to the far hills as though he would imprint the picture upon his memory. Only that morning he had put on his motley for the first time. "The Duke's gift, Jean," Felix had said last night. "Who hurts the fool shall henceforth have to reckon with the Duke." And it would almost seem that the dwarf had come to this exalted spot to show himself to the new day. The sentry smiled at the fool's pride; and some sensation of showing himself to the earth and sky of a new dawn may have passed through the dwarf's mind, but there was no pride in it. He played a part; under the motley was the same Jean, wise, cunning, and alert. He had climbed to the battlements for a purpose, and thoughts had come into his mind as he sat there which had made his face grave as he looked over the city, and to the distant hills, which shut in all the world he had ever known.