So Basil
departed, saying that he would return at the same hour on the morrow,
if the plague spared him and them, his patrons, as he prayed the Saints
that it might do.
Hugh watched him go, then turned to Dick and said:
"I mistrust me of that hungry wolf in sheep's clothing who talks so
large and yet does nothing. Let us go out and search Avignon again.
Perchance we may meet Acour, or at least gather some tidings of him."
So they went, leaving the Tower locked and barred, who perchance would
have been wiser to follow Basil. A debased and fraudulent lawyer of
no character at all, this man lived upon such fees as he could wring
without authority from those who came to lay their suits before the
Papal Court, playing upon their hopes and fears and pretending to a
power which he did not possess. Had they done so, they might have seen
him turn up a certain side street, and, when he was sure that none
watched him, slip into the portal of an ancient house where visitors of
rank were accustomed to lodge.
Mounting some stairs without meeting any one, for this house, like many
others, seemed to be deserted in that time of pestilence, he knocked
upon a door.
"Begone, whoever you are," growled a voice from within. "Here there are
neither sick to be tended nor dead to be borne away."
Had they been there to hear it, Hugh and Dick might have found that
voice familiar.
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