He turned his small eyes, sparkling with malignity, on the young man, who stood against the wall, pale, and but half recovered from the blow he had sustained.

"You thought to thwart me, did you, Messer Claude?
You thought yourself clever enough to play with Caesar Basterga, did you?
To hold at bay--oh, clever fellow--a magistrate and a scholar! And defy us both! Now I will tell you what will come of it!" He shook his great finger in front of the young man.

"Your pretty bit of pink and white will burn! Burn, see you! A show for the little boys, a holiday for the young men and the young women, a treat for the old men, who will see her white limbs writhe in the smoke! Ha!" as Claude, with a face of horror, would have waved him away, "that touches you, does it?
You had not thought of that?
Nay, you had not thought of other things.

I tell you, before the sun sets this evening, this house shall be anathema! Before night what we have heard will be known abroad, and there will be much added to it.

There was a child died in the fourth house from this on Sunday! It will be odd if she did not overlook it.
And the young wife of the Lieutenant at the Porte Tertasse, who has ailed since her marriage--a pale thing; who knows but he looked this way once and Mistress Anne thought ill of his defection?
Ha! Ha! You would cross Caesar Basterga, would you?
No, Messer Claude," he set his huge foot on the fallen sword which Claude had made a movement to recover.