Hinder me, and your necks shall answer for it--or your backs!" A laugh and an oath of derision formed the only response, and before I could add more, the larger group arrived, and joined the three.
"Who is it, Pierre ?" asked one of these in a matter-of-fact way, which showed I had not fallen amongst mere thieves.
The speaker seemed to be the leader of the band.

He had a feather in his bonnet, and I saw a steel corslet gleam under his cloak, when some one held up a lanthorn to examine me the better.

His trunk-hose were striped with black, white, and green--the livery as I learned afterwards of Monsieur the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third; then a close friend of the Duke of Guise, and later his murderer.

The captain spoke with a foreign accent, and his complexion was dark to swarthiness.

His eyes sparkled and flashed like black beads.