It needed but little shrewdness to guess those parchments before him to be
legal documents touching the Canaples estates, and his occupation that of
casting up exactly what profit he would reap from his infamous work of
betrayal.
So intent was the hound upon his calculations that my cautious movements
passed unheeded by him as I got astride of the window ledge. It was only
when I swung my right leg into the room that he turned his head, but before
his eyes reached me I was standing upright and motionless within the
chamber.
I have seen fear of many sorts writ large upon the faces of men of many
conditions--from the awe that blanches the cheek of the boy soldier when
first he hears the cannon thundering to the terror that glazes the eye of
the vanquished swordsman who at every moment expects the deadly point in
his heart. But never had I gazed upon a countenance filled with such
abject ghastly terror as that which came over St. Auban's when his eyes met
mine that night.
He sprang up with an inarticulate cry that sank into something that I can
but liken to the rattle which issues from the throat of expiring men.
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