The beasts my men bestrode were in little better condition, and so, with infinite chagrin, I was forced to acknowledge defeat and to determine that at Blagnac we should lie for the remainder of the night. After all, it mattered little. A couple of hours' riding in the morning would bring us to Toulouse, and we would start betimes.
I bade Gilles dismount--he had been the louder in his complainings--and follow us afoot, bringing my horse to the Auberge de l'Etoile at Blagnac, where he would await him. Then I mounted his jaded beast, and, accompanied by Antoine--the last of my retainers--I rode into Blagnac, and pulled up at the sign of the "Star."
With my whip I smote the door, and I had need to smite hard if I would be heard above the wind that shrieked and howled under the eaves of that narrow street. Yet it almost seemed as if some one were expected, for scarce had my knocking ceased when the door was opened, and the landlord stood there, shading a taper with his hand. For a moment I saw the glow of its light on his rosy, white-bearded face, then a gust of wind extinguished it.
"Diable!" he swore, "an ugly night for travelling"; adding as an afterthought, "You ride late, monsieur."
"You are a man of supreme discernment, Monsieur l'Hote," said I testily, as I pushed him aside and stepped into the passage. "Will you keep me in the rain till daylight whilst you perpend how late I ride? Is your ostler abed? See to those beasts yourself, then. Afterwards get me food--for me and for my man and beds for both of us."
"I have but one room, monsieur," he answered respectfully. "You shall have that, and your servant shall sleep in the hayloft."
"My servant sleeps in my room, if you have but one. Set a mattress on the floor for him. Is this a night to leave a dog to sleep in a hayloft? I have another servant following. He will be here in a few minutes. You must find room for him also--in the passage outside my door, if no other accommodation be possible."
"But, monsieur--" he began in a tone of protest, which I set down to the way a landlord has of making difficulties that he shall be the better paid for such lodging as he finds us.
"See to it," I ordered peremptorily. "You shall be well paid. Now go tend those horses."
On the wall of the passage fell a warm, reddish glow from the common room, which argued a fire, and this was too alluring to admit of my remaining longer in discussion with him. I strode forward, therefore. The Auberge de l'Etoile was not an imposing hostelry, nor one at which from choice I had made a halt. This common room stank most vilely of oil, of burning tallow--from the smoky tapers--and of I know not what other noisome unsavourinesses.