How many men were watching under those dimly-seen roofs, with arms in their hands?
How many sat with murder at heart?
How many were waking, who at dawn would sleep for ever, or sleeping who would wake only at the knife's edge?
These things I could not know, any more than I could picture how many boon-companions were parting at that instant, just risen from the dice, one to go blindly--the other watching him--to his death?
I could not imagine, thank Heaven for it, these secrets, or a hundredth part of the treachery and cruelty and greed that lurked at my feet, ready to burst all bounds at a pistol-shot.

It had no significance for me that the past day was the 23rd of August, or that the morrow was St.
Bartholomew's feast! No.

Yet mingled with the jubilation which the possibility of triumph over our enemy raised in my breast, there was certainly a foreboding.
The Vidame's hints, no less than his open boasts, had pointed to something to happen before morning--something wider than the mere murder of a single man.

The warning also which the Baron de Rosny had given us at the inn occurred to me with new meaning.

And I could not shake the feeling off.