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+Project Gutenberg Etext The House of the Wolf, by Stanley Weyman
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+The House of the Wolf
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+by Stanley Weyman
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+January, 2000  [Etext #2041]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The House of the Wolf, by Stanley Weyman
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+omitted.
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+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF
+
+A Romance
+
+by STANLEY WEYMAN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+ CHAP.
+   I.--WARE WOLF!
+  II.--THE VIDAME'S THREAT.
+ III.--THE ROAD TO PARIS.
+  IV.--ENTRAPPED!
+   V.--A PRIEST AND A WOMAN.
+  VI.--MADAME'S FRIGHT.
+ VII.--A YOUNG KNIGHT ERRANT.
+VIII.--THE PARISIAN MATINS.
+  IX.--THE HEAD OF ERASMUS.
+   X.--HAU, HAU, HUGUENOTS!
+  XI.--A NIGHT OF SORROW.
+ XII.--JOY IN THE MORNING.
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+The following is a modern English version of a curious French
+memoir, or fragment of autobiography, apparently written about
+the year 1620 by Anne, Vicomte de Caylus, and brought to this
+country--if, in fact, the original ever existed in England--by
+one of his descendants after the Revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes.  This Anne, we learn from other sources, was a principal
+figure at the Court of Henry IV., and, therefore, in August,
+1572, when the adventures here related took place, he and his two
+younger brothers, Marie and Croisette, who shared with him the
+honour and the danger, must have been little more than boys.
+From the tone of his narrative, it appears that, in reviving old
+recollections, the veteran renewed his youth also, and though his
+story throws no fresh light upon the history of the time, it
+seems to possess some human interest.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WARE WOLF!
+
+I had afterwards such good reason to look back upon and remember
+the events of that afternoon, that Catherine's voice seems to
+ring in my brain even now.  I can shut my eyes and see again,
+after all these years, what I saw then--just the blue summer sky,
+and one grey angle of the keep, from which a fleecy cloud was
+trailing like the smoke from a chimney.  I could see no more
+because I was lying on my back, my head resting on my hands.
+Marie and Croisette, my brothers, were lying by me in exactly the
+same posture, and a few yards away on the terrace, Catherine was
+sitting on a stool Gil had brought out for her.  It was the
+second Thursday in August, and hot.  Even the jackdaws were
+silent.  I had almost fallen asleep, watching my cloud grow
+longer and longer, and thinner and thinner, when Croisette, who
+cared for heat no more than a lizard, spoke up sharply,
+"Mademoiselle," he said, "why are you watching the Cahors road?"
+
+I had not noticed that she was doing so.  But something in the
+keenness of Croisette's tone, taken perhaps with the fact that
+Catherine did not at once answer him, aroused me; and I turned to
+her.  And lo!  she was blushing in the most heavenly way, and her
+eyes were full of tears, and she looked at us adorably.  And we
+all three sat up on our elbows, like three puppy dogs, and looked
+at her.  And there was a long silence.  And then she said quite
+simply to us, "Boys, I am going to be married to M. de Pavannes."
+
+I fell flat on my back and spread out my arms.  "Oh,
+Mademoiselle!"  I cried reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, Mademoiselle!"  cried Marie.  And he fell flat on his back,
+and spread out his arms and moaned.  He was a good brother, was
+Marie, and obedient.
+
+And Croisette cried, "Oh, mademoiselle!"  too.  But he was always
+ridiculous in his ways.  He fell flat on his back, and flopped his
+arms and squealed like a pig.
+
+Yet he was sharp.  It was he who first remembered our duty, and
+went to Catherine, cap in hand, where she sat half angry and half
+confused, and said with a fine redness in his cheeks,
+"Mademoiselle de Caylus, our cousin, we give you joy, and wish
+you long life; and are your servants, and the good friends and
+aiders of M. de Pavannes in all quarrels, as--"
+
+But I could not stand that.  "Not so fast, St. Croix de Caylus" I
+said, pushing him aside--he was ever getting before me in those
+days--and taking his place.  Then with my best bow I began,
+"Mademoiselle, we give you joy and long life, and are your
+servants and the good friends and aiders of M. de Pavannes in all
+quarrels, as--as--"
+
+"As becomes the cadets of your house," suggested Croisette,
+softly.
+
+"As becomes the cadets of your house," I repeated.  And then
+Catherine stood up and made me a low bow and we all kissed her
+hand in turn, beginning with me and ending with Croisette, as was
+becoming.  Afterwards Catherine threw her handkerchief over her
+face--she was crying--and we three sat down, Turkish fashion,
+just where we were, and said "Oh, Kit!"  very softly.
+
+But presently Croisette had something to add.  "What will the
+Wolf say?"  he whispered to me.
+
+"Ah!  To be sure!"  I exclaimed aloud.  I had been thinking of
+myself before; but this opened quite another window.  "What will
+the Vidame say, Kit?"
+
+She dropped her kerchief from her face, and turned so pale that I
+was sorry I had spoken--apart from the kick Croisette gave me.
+"Is M. de Bezers at his house?"  she asked anxiously.
+
+"Yes" Croisette answered.  "He came in last night from St.
+Antonin, with very small attendance."
+
+The news seemed to set her fears at rest instead of augmenting
+them as I should have expected.  I suppose they were rather for
+Louis de Pavannes, than for herself.  Not unnaturally, too, for
+even the Wolf could scarcely have found it in his heart to hurt
+our cousin.  Her slight willowy figure, her pale oval face and
+gentle brown eyes, her pleasant voice, her kindness, seemed to us
+boys and in those days, to sum up all that was womanly.  We could
+not remember, not even Croisette the youngest of us--who was
+seventeen, a year junior to Marie and myself--we were twins--the
+time when we had not been in love with her.
+
+But let me explain how we four, whose united ages scarce exceeded
+seventy years, came to be lounging on the terrace in the holiday
+stillness of that afternoon.  It was the summer of 1572.  The
+great peace, it will be remembered, between the Catholics and the
+Huguenots had not long been declared; the peace which in a day or
+two was to be solemnized, and, as most Frenchmen hoped, to be
+cemented by the marriage of Henry of Navarre with Margaret of
+Valois, the King's sister.  The Vicomte de Caylus, Catherine's
+father and our guardian, was one of the governors appointed to
+see the peace enforced; the respect in which he was held by both
+parties--he was a Catholic, but no bigot, God rest his soul!--
+recommending him for this employment.  He had therefore gone a
+week or two before to Bayonne, his province.  Most of our
+neighbours in Quercy were likewise from home, having gone to
+Paris to be witnesses on one side or the other of the royal
+wedding.  And consequently we young people, not greatly checked
+by the presence of good-natured, sleepy Madame Claude,
+Catherine's duenna, were disposed to make the most of our
+liberty; and to celebrate the peace in our own fashion.
+
+We were country-folk.  Not one of us had been to Pau, much less
+to Paris.  The Vicomte held stricter views than were common then,
+upon young people's education; and though we had learned to ride
+and shoot, to use our swords and toss a hawk, and to read and
+write, we knew little more than Catherine herself of the world;
+little more of the pleasures and sins of court life, and not one-
+tenth as much as she did of its graces.  Still she had taught us
+to dance and make a bow.  Her presence had softened our manners;
+and of late we had gained something from the frank companionship
+of Louis de Pavannes, a Huguenot whom the Vicomte had taken
+prisoner at Moncontour and held to ransom.  We were not, I
+think, mere clownish yokels.
+
+But we were shy.  We disliked and shunned strangers.  And when
+old Gil appeared suddenly, while we were still chewing the
+melancholy cud of Kit's announcement, and cried sepulchrally, "M.
+le Vidame de Bezers to pay his respects to Mademoiselle!"--Well,
+there was something like a panic, I confess!
+
+We scrambled to our feet, muttering, "The Wolf!"  The entrance at
+Caylus is by a ramp rising from the gateway to the level of the
+terrace.  This sunken way is fenced by low walls so that one may
+not--when walking on the terrace--fall into it.  Gil had spoken
+before his head had well risen to view, and this gave us a
+moment, just a moment.  Croisette made a rush for the doorway
+into the house; but failed to gain it, and drew himself up behind
+a buttress of the tower, his finger on his lip.  I am slow
+sometimes, and Marie waited for me, so that we had barely got to
+our legs--looking, I dare say, awkward and ungainly enough--
+before the Vidame's shadow fell darkly on the ground at
+Catherine's feet.
+
+"Mademoiselle!"  he said, advancing to her through the sunshine,
+and bending over her slender hand with a magnificent grace that
+was born of his size and manner combined, "I rode in late last
+night from Toulouse; and I go to-morrow to Paris.  I have but
+rested and washed off the stains of travel that I may lay my--
+ah!"
+
+He seemed to see us for the first time and negligently broke off
+in his compliment; raising himself and saluting us.  "Ah," he
+continued indolently, "two of the maidens of Caylus, I see.  With
+an odd pair of hands apiece, unless I am mistaken, Why do you not
+set them spinning, Mademoiselle?"  and he regarded us with that
+smile which--with other things as evil--had made him famous.
+
+Croisette pulled horrible faces behind his back.  We looked hotly
+at him; but could find nothing to say.
+
+"You grow red!"  he went on, pleasantly--the wretch!--playing
+with us as a cat does with mice.  "It offends your dignity,
+perhaps, that I bid Mademoiselle set you spinning?  I now would
+spin at Mademoiselle's bidding, and think it happiness!"
+
+"We are not girls!"  I blurted out, with the flush and tremor of
+a boy's passion.  "You had not called my godfather, Anne de
+Montmorenci a girl, M. le Vidame!"  For though we counted it a
+joke among ourselves that we all bore girls' names, we were young
+enough to be sensitive about it.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.  And how he dwarfed us all as he stood
+there dominating our terrace!  "M. de Montmorenci was a man," he
+said scornfully.  "M. Anne de Caylus is--"
+
+And the villain deliberately turned his great back upon us,
+taking his seat on the low wall near Catherine's chair.  It was
+clear even to our vanity that he did not think us worth another
+word--that we had passed absolutely from his mind.  Madame Claude
+came waddling out at the same moment, Gil carrying a chair behind
+her.  And we--well we slunk away and sat on the other side of the
+terrace, whence we could still glower at the offender.
+
+Yet who were we to glower at him?  To this day I shake at the
+thought of him.  It was not so much his height and bulk, though
+he was so big that the clipped pointed fashion of his beard a
+fashion then new at court--seemed on him incongruous and
+effeminate; nor so much the sinister glance of his grey eyes--he
+had a slight cast in them; nor the grim suavity of his manner,
+and the harsh threatening voice that permitted of no disguise.
+It was the sum of these things, the great brutal presence of the
+man--that was overpowering--that made the great falter and the
+poor crouch.  And then his reputation!  Though we knew little of
+the world's wickedness, all we did know had come to us linked
+with his name.  We had heard of him as a duellist, as a bully, an
+employer of bravos.  At Jarnac he had been the last to turn from
+the shambles.  Men called him cruel and vengeful even for those
+days--gone by now, thank God!--and whispered his name when they
+spoke of assassinations; saying commonly of him that he would not
+blench before a Guise, nor blush before the Virgin.
+
+Such was our visitor and neighbour, Raoul de Mar, Vidame de
+Bezers.  As he sat on the terrace, now eyeing us askance, and now
+paying Catherine a compliment, I likened him to a great cat
+before which a butterfly has all unwittingly flirted her
+prettiness.  Poor Catherine!  No doubt she had her own reasons
+for uneasiness; more reasons I fancy than I then guessed.  For
+she seemed to have lost her voice.  She stammered and made but
+poor replies; and Madame Claude being deaf and stupid, and we
+boys too timid after the rebuff we had experienced to fill the
+gap, the conversation languished.  The Vidame was not for his
+part the man to put himself out on a hot day.
+
+It was after one of these pauses--not the first but the longest--
+that I started on finding his eyes fixed on mine.  More, I
+shivered.  It is hard to describe, but there was a look in the
+Vidame's eyes at that moment which I had never seen before.  A
+look of pain almost:  of dumb savage alarm at any rate.  From me
+they passed slowly to Marie and mutely interrogated him.  Then
+the Vidame's glance travelled back to Catherine, and settled on
+her.
+
+Only a moment before she had been but too conscious of his
+presence.  Now, as it chanced by bad luck, or in the course of
+Providence, something had drawn her attention elsewhere.  She was
+unconscious of his regard.  Her own eyes were fixed in a far-away
+gaze.  Her colour was high, her lips were parted, her bosom
+heaved gently.
+
+The shadow deepened on the Vidame's face.  Slowly he took his
+eyes from hers, and looked northwards also.
+
+Caylus Castle stands on a rock in the middle of the narrow valley
+of that name.  The town clusters about the ledges of the rock so
+closely that when I was a boy I could fling a stone clear of the
+houses.  The hills are scarcely five hundred yards distant on
+either side, rising in tamer colours from the green fields about
+the brook.  It is possible from the terrace to see the whole
+valley, and the road which passes through it lengthwise.
+Catherine's eyes were on the northern extremity of the defile,
+where the highway from Cahors descends from the uplands.  She had
+been sitting with her face turned that way all the afternoon.
+
+I looked that way too.  A solitary horseman was descending the
+steep track from the hills.
+
+"Mademoiselle!"  cried the Vidame suddenly.  We all looked up.
+His tone was such that the colour fled from Kit's face.  There
+was something in his voice she had never heard in any voice
+before--something that to a woman was like a blow.
+"Mademoiselle," he snarled, "is expecting news from Cahors, from
+her lover.  I have the honour to congratulate M. de Pavannes on
+his conquest."
+
+Ah!  he had guessed it!  As the words fell on the sleepy silence,
+an insult in themselves, I sprang to my feet, amazed and angry,
+yet astounded by his quickness of sight and wit.  He must have
+recognized the Pavannes badge at that distance.  "M. le Vidame,"
+I said indignantly--Catherine was white and voiceless--"M. le
+Vidame--" but there I stopped and faltered stammering.  For
+behind him I could see Croisette; and Croisette gave me no sign
+of encouragement or support.
+
+So we stood face to face for a moment; the boy and the man of the
+world, the stripling and the ROUE.  Then the Vidame bowed to me
+in quite a new fashion.  "M. Anne de Caylus desires to answer for
+M. de Pavannes?"  he asked smoothly; with a mocking smoothness.
+
+I understood what he meant.  But something prompted me--Croisette
+said afterwards that it was a happy thought, though now I know
+the crisis to have been less serious than he fancied to answer,
+"Nay, not for M. de Pavannes.  Rather for my cousin."  And I
+bowed.  "I have the honour on her behalf to acknowledge your
+congratulations, M. le Vidame.  It pleases her that our nearest
+neighbour should also be the first outside the family to wish her
+well.  You have divined truly in supposing that she will shortly
+be united to M. de Pavannes."
+
+I suppose--for I saw the giant's colour change and his lip quiver
+as I spoke--that his previous words had been only a guess.  For a
+moment the devil seemed to be glaring through his eyes; and he
+looked at Marie and me as a wild animal at its keepers.  Yet he
+maintained his cynical politeness in part.  "Mademoiselle desires
+my congratulations?"  he said, slowly, labouring with each word
+it seemed.  "She shall have them on the happy day.  She shall
+certainly have them then.  But these are troublous times.  And
+Mademoiselle's betrothed is I think a Huguenot, and has gone to
+Paris.  Paris--well, the air of Paris is not good for Huguenots,
+I am told."
+
+I saw Catherine shiver; indeed she was on the point of fainting,
+I broke in rudely, my passion getting the better of my fears.
+"M. de Pavannes can take care of himself, believe me," I said
+brusquely.
+
+"Perhaps so," Bezers answered, his voice like the grating of
+steel on steel.  "But at any rate this will be a memorable day
+for Mademoiselle.  The day on which she receives her first
+congratulations--she will remember it as long as she lives!  Oh,
+yes, I will answer for that, M. Anne," he said looking brightly
+at one and another of us, his eyes more oblique than ever,
+"Mademoiselle will remember it, I am sure!"
+
+It would be impossible to describe the devilish glance he flung
+at the poor sinking girl as he withdrew, the horrid emphasis he
+threw into those last words, the covert deadly threat they
+conveyed to the dullest ears.  That he went then, was small
+mercy.  He had done all the evil he could do at present.  If his
+desire had been to leave fear behind him, he had certainly
+succeeded.
+
+Kit crying softly went into the house; her innocent coquetry more
+than sufficiently punished already.  And we three looked at one
+another with blank faces, It was clear that we had made a
+dangerous enemy, and an enemy at our own gates.  As the Vidame
+had said, these were troublous times when things were done to
+men--ay, and to women and children--which we scarce dare to speak
+of now.  "I wish the Vicomte were here," Croisette said uneasily
+after we had discussed several unpleasant contingencies.
+
+"Or even Malines the steward," I suggested.
+
+"He would not be much good," replied Croisette.
+
+"And he is at St. Antonin, and will not be back this week.
+Father Pierre too is at Albi."
+
+"You do not think," said Marie, "that he will attack us?"
+
+"Certainly not!"  Croisette retorted with contempt.  "Even the
+Vidame would not dare to do that in time of peace.  Besides, he
+has not half a score of men here," continued the lad, shrewdly,
+"and counting old Gil and ourselves we have as many.  And
+Pavannes always said that three men could hold the gate at the
+bottom of the ramp against a score.  Oh, he will not try that!"
+
+"Certainly not!"  I agreed.  And so we crushed Marie.  "But for
+Louis de Pavannes--"
+
+Catherine interrupted me.  She came out quickly looking a
+different person; her face flushed with anger, her tears dried.
+
+"Anne!"  she cried, imperiously, "what is the matter down below
+--will you see?"
+
+I had no difficulty in doing that.  All the sounds of town life
+came up to us on the terrace.  Lounging there we could hear the
+chaffering over the wheat measures in the cloisters of the
+market-square, the yell of a dog, the voice of a scold, the
+church bell, the watchman's cry.  I had only to step to the wall
+to overlook it all.  On this summer afternoon the town had been
+for the most part very quiet.  If we had not been engaged in our
+own affairs we should have taken the alarm before, remarking in
+the silence the first beginnings of what was now a very
+respectable tumult.  It swelled louder even as we stepped to the
+wall.
+
+We could see--a bend in the street laying it open--part of the
+Vidame's house; the gloomy square hold which had come to him from
+his mother.  His own chateau of Bezers lay far away in Franche
+Comte, but of late he had shown a preference--Catherine could
+best account for it, perhaps--for this mean house in Caylus.  It
+was the only house in the town which did not belong to us.  It
+was known as the House of the Wolf, and was a grim stone building
+surrounding a courtyard.  Rows of wolves' heads carved in stone
+flanked the windows, whence their bare fangs grinned day and
+night at the church porch opposite.
+
+The noise drew our eyes in this direction; and there lolling in a
+window over the door, looking out on the street with a laughing
+eye, was Bezers himself.  The cause of his merriment--we had not
+far to look for it--was a horseman who was riding up the street
+under difficulties.  He was reining in his steed--no easy task on
+that steep greasy pavement--so as to present some front to a
+score or so of ragged knaves who were following close at his
+heels, hooting and throwing mud and pebbles at him.  The man had
+drawn his sword, and his oaths came up to us, mingled with shrill
+cries of "VIVE LA MESSE!"  and half drowned by the clattering of
+the horse's hoofs.  We saw a stone strike him in the face, and
+draw blood, and heard him swear louder than before.
+
+"Oh!"  cried Catherine, clasping her hands with a sudden shriek
+of indignation, "my letter!  They will get my letter!"
+
+"Death!"  exclaimed Croisette, "She is right!  It is M. de
+Pavannes' courier!  This must be stopped!  We cannot stand this,
+Anne!"
+
+"They shall pay dearly for it, by our Lady!"  I cried swearing
+myself.  "And in peace time too--the villains!  Gil!  Francis!" I
+shouted, "where are you?"
+
+And I looked round for my fowling piece, while Croisette jumped
+on the wall, and forming a trumpet with his hands, shrieked at
+the top of his voice, "Back!  he bears a letter from the
+Vicomte!"
+
+But the device did not succeed, and I could not find my gun.  For
+a moment we were helpless, and before I could have fetched the
+gun from the house, the horseman and the hooting rabble at his
+heels, had turned a corner and were hidden by the roofs.
+
+Another turn however would bring them out in front of the
+gateway, and seeing this we hurried down the ramp to meet them.
+I stayed a moment to tell Gil to collect the servants, and, this
+keeping me, Croisette reached the narrow street outside before
+me.  As I followed him I was nearly knocked down by the rider,
+whose face was covered with, dirt and blood, while fright had
+rendered his horse unmanageable.  Darting aside I let him pass
+--he was blinded and could not see me--and then found that
+Croisette--brave lad!  had collared the foremost of the ruffians,
+and was beating him with his sheathed sword, while the rest of
+the rabble stood back, ashamed, yet sullen, and with anger in
+their eyes.  A dangerous crew, I thought; not townsmen, most of
+them.
+
+"Down with the Huguenots!"  cried one, as I appeared, one bolder
+than the rest.
+
+"Down with the CANAILLE!"  I retorted, sternly eyeing the ill-
+looking ring.  "Will you set yourselves above the king's peace,
+dirt that you are?  Go back to your kennels!"
+
+The words were scarcely out of my mouth, before I saw that the
+fellow whom Croisette was punishing had got hold of a dagger.  I
+shouted a warning, but it came too late.  The blade fell, and--
+thanks to God--striking the buckle of the lad's belt, glanced off
+harmless.  I saw the steel flash up again--saw the spite in the
+man's eyes:  but this time I was a step nearer, and before the
+weapon fell, I passed my sword clean through the wretch's body.
+He went down like a log, Croisette falling with him, held fast by
+his stiffening fingers.
+
+I had never killed a man before, nor seen a man die; and if I had
+stayed to think about it, I should have fallen sick perhaps.  But
+it was no time for thought; no time for sickness.  The crowd were
+close upon us, a line of flushed threatening faces from wall to
+wall.  A single glance downwards told me that the man was dead,
+and I set my foot upon his neck.  "Hounds!  Beasts!"  I cried,
+not loudly this time, for though I was like one possessed with
+rage, it was inward rage, "go to your kennels!  Will you dare to
+raise a hand against a Caylus?  Go--or when the Vicomte returns,
+a dozen of you shall hang in the market-place!"
+
+I suppose I looked fierce enough--I know I felt no fear, only a
+strange exaltation--for they slunk away.  Unwillingly, but with
+little delay the group melted, Bezers' following--of whom I knew
+the dead man was one--the last to go.  While I still glared at
+them, lo!  the street was empty; the last had disappeared round
+the bend.  I turned to find Gil and half-a-dozen servants
+standing with pale faces at my back.  Croisette seized my hand
+with a sob.  "Oh, my lord," cried Gil, quaveringly.  But I shook
+one off, I frowned at the other.
+
+"Take up this carrion!"  I said, touching it with my foot, "And
+hang it from the justice-elm.  And then close the gates!  See to
+it, knaves, and lose no time."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE VIDAME'S THREAT.
+
+Croisette used to tell a story, of the facts of which I have no
+remembrance, save as a bad dream.  He would have it that I left
+my pallet that night--I had one to myself in the summer, being
+the eldest, while he and Marie slept on another in the same room
+--and came to him and awoke him, sobbing and shaking and
+clutching him; and begging him in a fit of terror not to let me
+go.  And that so I slept in his arms until morning.  But as I
+have said, I do not remember anything of this, only that I had an
+ugly dream that night, and that when I awoke I was lying with him
+and Marie; so I cannot say whether it really happened.
+
+At any rate, if I had any feeling of the kind it did not last
+long; on the contrary--it would be idle to deny it--I was
+flattered by the sudden respect, Gil and the servants showed me.
+What Catherine thought of the matter I could not tell.  She had
+her letter and apparently found it satisfactory.  At any rate we
+saw nothing of her.  Madame Claude was busy boiling simples, and
+tending the messenger's hurts.  And it seemed natural that I
+should take command.
+
+There could be no doubt--at any rate we had none that the assault
+on the courier had taken place at the Vidame's instance.  The
+only wonder was that he had not simply cut his throat and taken
+the letter.  But looking back now it seems to me that grown men
+mingled some childishness with their cruelty in those days--days
+when the religious wars had aroused our worst passions.  It was
+not enough to kill an enemy.  It pleased people to make--I speak
+literally--a football of his head, to throw his heart to the
+dogs.  And no doubt it had fallen in with the Vidame's grim
+humour that the bearer of Pavannes' first love letter should
+enter his mistress's presence, bleeding and plaistered with mud.
+And that the riff-raff about our own gates should have part in
+the insult.
+
+Bezers' wrath would be little abated by the issue of the affair,
+or the justice I had done on one of his men.  So we looked well
+to bolts, and bars, and windows, although the castle is well-nigh
+impregnable, the smooth rock falling twenty feet at least on
+every side from the base of the walls.  The gatehouse, Pavannes
+had shown us, might be blown up with gunpowder indeed, but we
+prepared to close the iron grating which barred the way half-way
+up the ramp.  This done, even if the enemy should succeed in
+forcing an entrance he would only find himself caught in a trap--
+in a steep, narrow way exposed to a fire from the top of the
+flanking walls, as well as from the front.  We had a couple of
+culverins, which the Vicomte had got twenty years before, at the
+time of the battle of St. Quentin.  We fixed one of these at the
+head of the ramp, and placed the other on the terrace, where by
+moving it a few paces forward we could train it on Bezers' house,
+which thus lay at our mercy.
+
+Not that we really expected an attack.  But we did not know what
+to expect or what to fear.  We had not ten servants, the Vicomte
+having taken a score of the sturdiest lackeys and keepers to
+attend him at Bayonne.  And we felt immensely responsible.  Our
+main hope was that the Vidame would at once go on to Paris, and
+postpone his vengeance.  So again and again we cast longing
+glances at the House of the Wolf hoping that each symptom of
+bustle heralded his departure.
+
+Consequently it was a shock to me, and a great downfall of hopes,
+when Gil with a grave face came to me on the terrace and
+announced that M. le Vidame was at the gate, asking to see
+Mademoiselle.
+
+"It is out of the question that he should see her," the old
+servant added, scratching his head in grave perplexity.
+
+"Most certainly.  I will see him instead," I answered stoutly.
+"Do you leave Francis and another at the gate, Gil.  Marie, keep
+within sight, lad.  And let Croisette stay with me."
+
+These preparations made--and they took up scarcely a moment--I
+met the Vidame at the head of the ramp.  "Mademoiselle de
+Caylus," I said, bowing, "is, I regret to say, indisposed to-day,
+Vidame."
+
+"She will not see me?"  he asked, eyeing me very unpleasantly.
+
+"Her indisposition deprives her of the pleasure," I answered with
+an effort.  He was certainly a wonderful man, for at sight of
+him, three-fourths of my courage, and all my importance, oozed
+out at the heels of my boots.
+
+"She will not see me.  Very well," he replied, as if I had not
+spoken.  And the simple words sounded like a sentence of death.
+"Then, M. Anne, I have a crow to pick with you.  What
+compensation do you propose to make for the death of my servant?
+A decent, quiet fellow, whom you killed yesterday, poor man,
+because his enthusiasm for the true faith carried him away a
+little."
+
+"Whom I killed because he drew a dagger on M. St. Croix de Caylus
+at the Vicomte's gate," I answered steadily.  I had thought about
+this of course and was ready for it.  "You are aware, M. de
+Bezers," I continued, "that the Vicomte has jurisdiction
+extending to life and death over all persons within the valley?"
+
+"My household excepted," he rejoined quietly.
+
+"Precisely; while they are within the curtilage of your house," I
+retorted.  "However as the punishment was summary, and the man
+had no time to confess himself, I am willing to--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"To pay Father Pierre to say ten masses for his soul."
+
+The way the Vidame received this surprised me.  He broke into
+boisterous laughter.  "By our Lady, my friend," he cried with
+rough merriment, "but you are a joker!  You are indeed.  Masses?
+Why the man was a Protestant!"
+
+And that startled me more than anything which had gone before;
+more indeed than I can explain.  For it seemed to prove that this
+man, laughing his unholy laugh was not like other men.  He did
+not pick and choose his servants for their religion.  He was sure
+that the Huguenot would stone his fellow at his bidding; the
+Catholic cry "Vive Coligny!"  I was so completely taken aback
+that I found no words to answer him, and it was Croisette who
+said smartly, "Then how about his enthusiasm for the true faith,
+M. le Vidame?"
+
+"The true faith," he answered--"for my servants is my faith."
+Then a thought seemed to strike him.  "What is more."  he
+continued slowly, "that it is the true and only faith for all,
+thousands will learn before the world is ten days older.  Bear my
+words in mind, boy!  They will come back to you.  And now hear
+me," he went on in his usual tone, "I am anxious to accommodate a
+neighbour.  It goes without saying that I would not think of
+putting you, M. Anne, to any trouble for the sake of that rascal
+of mine.  But my people will expect something.  Let the plaguy
+fellow who caused all this disturbance be given up to me, that I
+may hang him; and let us cry quits."
+
+"That is impossible!"  I answered coolly.  I had no need to ask
+what he meant.  Give up Pavannes' messenger indeed!  Never!
+
+He regarded me--unmoved by my refusal--with a smile under which I
+chafed, while I was impotent to resent it.  "Do not build too
+much on a single blow, young gentleman," he said, shaking his
+head waggishly.  "I had fought a dozen times when I was your age.
+However, I understand that you refuse to give me satisfaction?"
+
+"In the mode you mention, certainly," I replied.  "But--"
+
+"Bah!"  he exclaimed with a sneer, "business first and pleasure
+afterwards!  Bezers will obtain satisfaction in his own way, I
+promise you that!  And at his own time.  And it will not be on
+unfledged bantlings like you.  But what is this for?"  And he
+rudely kicked the culverin which apparently he had not noticed
+before, "So!  so!  understand," he continued, casting a sharp
+glance at one and another of us.  "You looked to be besieged!
+Why you, booby, there is the shoot of your kitchen midden, twenty
+feet above the roof of old Fretis' store!  And open, I will be
+sworn!  Do you think that I should have come this way while there
+was a ladder in Caylus!  Did you take the wolf for a sheep?"
+
+With that he turned on his heel, swaggering away in the full
+enjoyment of his triumph.  For a triumph it was.  We stood
+stunned; ashamed to look one another in the face.  Of course the
+shoot was open.  We remembered now that it was, and we were so
+sorely mortified by his knowledge and our folly, that I failed in
+my courtesy, and did not see him to the gate, as I should have
+done.  We paid for that later.
+
+"He is the devil in person!"  I exclaimed angrily, shaking my
+fist at the House of the Wolf, as I strode up and down
+impatiently.  "I hate him worse!"
+
+"So do I!"  said Croisette, mildly.  "But that he hates us is a
+matter of more importance.  At any rate we will close the shoot."
+
+"Wait a moment!"  I replied, as after another volley of
+complaints directed at our visitor, the lad was moving off to see
+to it. "What is going on down there?"
+
+"Upon my word, I believe he is leaving us!"  Croisette rejoined
+sharply.
+
+For there was a noise of hoofs below us, clattering on the
+pavement.  Half-a-dozen horsemen were issuing from the House of
+the Wolf, the ring of their bridles and the sound of their
+careless voices coming up to us through the clear morning air
+Bezers' valet, whom we knew by sight, was the last of them.  He
+had a pair of great saddle-bags before him, and at sight of these
+we uttered a glad exclamation.  "He is going!"  I murmured,
+hardly able to believe my eyes.  "He is going after all!"
+
+"Wait!"  Croisette answered drily.
+
+But I was right.  We had not to wait long.  He WAS going.  In
+another moment he came out himself, riding a strong iron-grey
+horse:  and we could see that he had holsters to his saddle.  His
+steward was running beside him, to take I suppose his last
+orders.  A cripple, whom the bustle had attracted from his usual
+haunt, the church porch, held up his hand for alms.  The Vidame
+as he passed, cut him savagely across the face with his whip, and
+cursed him audibly.
+
+"May the devil take him!"  exclaimed Croisette in just rage.  But
+I said nothing, remembering that the cripple was a particular pet
+of Catherine's.  I thought instead of an occasion, not so very
+long ago, when the Vicomte being at home, we had had a great
+hawking party.  Bezers and Catherine had ridden up the street
+together, and Catherine giving the cripple a piece of money,
+Bezers had flung to him all his share of the game.  And my heart
+sank.
+
+Only for a moment, however.  The man was gone; or was going at
+any rate.  We stood silent and motionless, all watching, until,
+after what seemed a long interval, the little party of seven
+became visible on the white road far below us--to the northward,
+and moving in that direction.  Still we watched them, muttering a
+word to one another, now and again, until presently the riders
+slackened their pace, and began to ascend the winding track that
+led to the hills and Cahors; and to Paris also, if one went far
+enough.
+
+Then at length with a loud "Whoop!"  we dashed across the
+terrace, Croisette leading, and so through the courtyard to the
+parlour; where we arrived breathless.  "He is off!"  Croisette
+cried shrilly.  "He has started for Paris!  And bad luck go with
+him!"  And we all flung up our caps and shouted.
+
+But no answer, such as we expected, came from the women folk.
+When we picked up our caps, and looked at Catherine, feeling
+rather foolish, she was staring at us with a white face and great
+scornful eyes.  "Fools!"  she said.  "Fools!"
+
+And that was all.  But it was enough to take me aback.  I had
+looked to see her face lighten at our news; instead it wore an
+expression I had never seen on it before.  Catherine, so kind and
+gentle, calling us fools!  And without cause!  I did not
+understand it.  I turned confusedly to Croisette.  He was looking
+at her, and I saw that he was frightened.  As for Madame Claude,
+she was crying in the corner.  A presentiment of evil made my
+heart sink like lead.  What had happened?
+
+"Fools!"  my cousin repeated with exceeding bitterness, her foot
+tapping the parquet unceasingly.  "Do you think he would have
+stooped to avenge himself on YOU?  On you!  Or that he could hurt
+me one hundredth part as much here as--as--"  She broke off
+stammering.  Her scorn faltered for an instant.  "Bah!  he is a
+man!  He knows!"  she exclaimed superbly, her chin in the air,
+"but you are boys.  You do not understand!"
+
+I looked amazedly at this angry woman.  I had a difficulty in
+associating her with my cousin.  As for Croisette, he stepped
+forward abruptly, and picked up a white object which was lying at
+her feet.
+
+"Yes, read it!"  she cried, "read it!  Ah!"  and she clenched her
+little hand, and in her passion struck the oak table beside her,
+so that a stain of blood sprang out on her knuckles.  "Why did you
+not kill him?  Why did you not do it when you had the chance?
+You were three to one," she hissed.  "You had him in your power!
+You could have killed him, and you did not!  Now he will kill
+me!"
+
+Madame Claude muttered something tearfully; something about
+Pavannes and the saints.  I looked over Croisette's shoulder, and
+read the letter.  It began abruptly without any term of address,
+and ran thus, "I have a mission in Paris, Mademoiselle, which
+admits of no delay, your mission, as well as my own--to see
+Pavannes.  You have won his heart.  It is yours, and I will bring
+it you, or his right hand in token that he has yielded up his
+claim to yours.  And to this I pledge myself."
+
+The thing bore no signature.  It was written in some red fluid--
+blood perhaps--a mean and sorry trick!  On the outside was
+scrawled a direction to Mademoiselle de Caylus.  And the packet
+was sealed with the Vidame's crest, a wolf's head.
+
+"The coward!  the miserable coward!"  Croisette cried.  He was
+the first to read the meaning of the thing.  And his eyes were
+full of tears--tears of rage.
+
+For me I was angry exceedingly.  My veins seemed full of fire, as
+I comprehended the mean cruelty which could thus torture a girl.
+
+"Who delivered this?"  I thundered.  "Who gave it to
+Mademoiselle? How did it reach her hands?  Speak, some one!"
+
+A maid, whimpering in the background, said that Francis had given
+it to her to hand to Mademoiselle.
+
+I ground my teeth together, while Marie, unbidden, left the room
+to seek Francis--and a stirrup leather.  The Vidame had brought
+the note in his pocket no doubt, rightly expecting that he would
+not get an audience of my cousin.  Returning to the gate alone he
+had seen his opportunity, and given the note to Francis, probably
+with a small fee to secure its transmission.
+
+Croisette and I looked at one another, apprehending all this.
+"He will sleep at Cahors to-night," I said sullenly.
+
+The lad shook his head and answered in a low voice, "I am afraid
+not.  His horses are fresh.  I think he will push on.  He always
+travels quickly.  And now you know--"
+
+I nodded, understanding only too well.
+
+Catherine had flung herself into a chair.  Her arms lay nerveless
+on the table.  Her face was hidden in them.  But now, overhearing
+us, or stung by some fresh thought, she sprang to her feet in
+anguish.  Her face twitched, her form seemed to stiffen as she
+drew herself up like one in physical pain.  "Oh, I cannot bear
+it!"  she cried to us in dreadful tones.  "Oh, will no one do
+anything?  I will go to him!  I will tell him I will give him up!
+I will do whatever he wishes if he will only spare him!"
+
+Croisette went from the room crying.  It was a dreadful sight for
+us--this girl in agony.  And it was impossible to reassure her!
+Not one of us doubted the horrible meaning of the note, its
+covert threat.  Civil wars and religious hatred, and I fancy
+Italian modes of thought, had for the time changed our countrymen
+to beasts.  Far more dreadful things were done then than this
+which Bezers threatened--even if he meant it literally--far more
+dreadful things were suffered.  But in the fiendish ingenuity of
+his vengeance on her, the helpless, loving woman, I thought Raoul
+de Bezers stood alone.  Alas!  it fares ill with the butterfly
+when the cat has struck it down.  Ill indeed!
+
+Madame Claude rose and put her arms round the girl, dismissing me
+by a gesture.  I went out, passing through two or three scared
+servants, and made at once for the terrace.  I felt as if I could
+only breathe there.  I found Marie and St. Croix together,
+silent, the marks of tears on their faces.  Our eyes met and they
+told one tale.
+
+We all spoke at the same time.  "When?"  we said.  But the others
+looked to me for an answer.
+
+I was somewhat sobered by that, and paused to consider before I
+replied.  "At daybreak to-morrow," I decided presently.  "It is
+an hour after noon already.  We want money, and the horses are
+out.  It will take an hour to bring them in.  After that we might
+still reach Cahors to-night, perhaps; but more haste less speed
+you know.  At daybreak to-morrow we will start."
+
+They nodded assent.
+
+It was a great thing we meditated.  No less than to go to Paris--
+the unknown city so far beyond the hills--and seek out M. de
+Pavannes, and warn him.  It would be a race between the Vidame
+and ourselves; a race for the life of Kit's suitor.  Could we
+reach Paris first, or even within twenty-four hours of Bezers'
+arrival, we should in all probability be in time, and be able to
+put Pavannes on his guard.  It had been the first thought of all
+of us, to take such men as we could get together and fall upon
+Bezers wherever we found him, making it our simple object to kill
+him.  But the lackeys M. le Vicomte had left with us, the times
+being peaceful and the neighbours friendly, were poor-spirited
+fellows.  Bezers' handful, on the contrary, were reckless Swiss
+riders--like master, like men.  We decided that it would be wiser
+simply to warn Pavannes, and then stand by him if necessary.
+
+We might have despatched a messenger.  But our servants--Gil
+excepted, and he was too old to bear the journey--were ignorant
+of Paris.  Nor could any one of them be trusted with a mission so
+delicate.  We thought of Pavannes' courier indeed.  But he was a
+Rochellois, and a stranger to the capital.  There was nothing for
+it but to go ourselves.
+
+Yet we did not determine on this adventure with light hearts, I
+remember.  Paris loomed big and awesome in the eyes of all of us.
+The glamour of the court rather frightened than allured us.  We
+felt that shrinking from contact with the world which a country
+life engenders, as well as that dread of seeming unlike other
+people which is peculiar to youth.  It was a great plunge, and a
+dangerous which we meditated.  And we trembled.  If we had known
+more--especially of the future--we should have trembled more.
+
+But we were young, and with our fears mingled a delicious
+excitement.  We were going on an adventure of knight errantry in
+which we might win our spurs.  We were going to see the world and
+play men's parts in it!  to save a friend and make our mistress
+happy!
+
+We gave our orders.  But we said nothing to Catherine or Madame
+Claude; merely bidding Gil tell them after our departure.  We
+arranged for the immediate despatch of a message to the Vicomte
+at Bayonne, and charged Gil until he should hear from him to keep
+the gates closed, and look well to the shoot of the kitchen
+midden.  Then, when all was ready, we went to our pallets, but it
+was with hearts throbbing with excitement and wakeful eyes.
+
+"Anne!  Anne!"  said Croisette, rising on his elbow and speaking
+to me some three hours later, "what do you think the Vidame meant
+this morning when he said that about the ten days?"
+
+"What about the ten days?"  I asked peevishly.  He had roused me
+just when I was at last falling asleep.
+
+"About the world seeing that his was the true faith--in ten
+days?"
+
+"I am sure I do not know.  For goodness' sake let us go to
+sleep," I replied.  For I had no patience with Croisette, talking
+such nonsense, when we had our own business to think about.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ROAD TO PARIS.
+
+The sun had not yet risen above the hills when we three with a
+single servant behind us drew rein at the end of the valley; and
+easing our horses on the ascent, turned in the saddle to take a
+last look at Caylus--at the huddled grey town, and the towers
+above it.  A little thoughtful we all were, I think.  The times
+were rough and our errand was serious.  But youth and early
+morning are fine dispellers of care; and once on the uplands we
+trotted gaily forward, now passing through wide glades in the
+sparse oak forest, where the trees all leaned one way, now over
+bare, wind-swept downs; or once and again descending into a
+chalky bottom, where the stream bubbled through deep beds of
+fern, and a lonely farmhouse nestled amid orchards.
+
+Four hours' riding, and we saw below us Cahors, filling the bend
+of the river.  We cantered over the Vallandre Bridge, which there
+crosses the Lot, and so to my uncle's house of call in the
+square.  Here we ordered breakfast, and announced with pride that
+we were going to Paris.
+
+Our host raised his hands.  "Now there!"  he exclaimed, regret in
+his voice.  "And if you had arrived yesterday you could have
+travelled up with the Vidame de Bezers!  And you a small party--
+saving your lordships' presence--and the roads but so-so!"
+
+"But the Vidame was riding with only half-a-dozen attendants
+also!"  I answered, flicking my boot in a careless way.
+
+The landlord shook his head.  "Ah, M. le Vidame knows the world!"
+he answered shrewdly.  "He is not to be taken off his guard, not
+he!  One of his men whispered me that twenty staunch fellows
+would join him at Chateauroux.  They say the wars are over, but"
+--and the good man, shrugging his shoulders, cast an expressive
+glance at some fine flitches of bacon which were hanging in his
+chimney. "However, your lordships know better than I do," he
+added briskly.  "I am a poor man.  I only wish to live at peace
+with my neighbours, whether they go to mass or sermon."
+
+This was a sentiment so common in those days and so heartily
+echoed by most men of substance both in town and country, that we
+did not stay to assent to it; but having received from the worthy
+fellow a token which would insure our obtaining fresh cattle at
+Limoges, we took to the road again, refreshed in body, and with
+some food for thought.
+
+Five-and-twenty attendants were more than even such a man as
+Bezers, who had many enemies, travelled with in those days;
+unless accompanied by ladies.  That the Vidame had provided such
+a reinforcement seemed to point to a wider scheme than the one
+with which we had credited him.  But we could not guess what his
+plans were; since he must have ordered his people before he heard
+of Catherine's engagement.  Either his jealousy therefore had put
+him on the alert earlier, or his threatened attack on Pavannes
+was only part of a larger plot.  In either case our errand seemed
+more urgent, but scarcely more hopeful.
+
+The varied sights and sounds however of the road--many of them
+new to us--kept us from dwelling over much on this.  Our eyes
+were young, and whether it was a pretty girl lingering behind a
+troop of gipsies, or a pair of strollers from Valencia
+--JONGLEURS they still called themselves--singing in the old
+dialect of Provence, or a Norman horse-dealer with his string of
+cattle tied head and tail, or the Puy de Dome to the eastward
+over the Auvergne hills, or a tattered old soldier wounded in the
+wars--fighting for either side, according as their lordships
+inclined--we were pleased with all.
+
+Yet we never forgot our errand.  We never I think rose in the
+morning--too often stiff and sore--without thinking "To-day or
+to-morrow or the next day--" as the case might be--"we shall make
+all right for Kit!"  For Kit!  Perhaps it was the purest
+enthusiasm we were ever to feel, the least selfish aim we were
+ever to pursue.  For Kit!
+
+Meanwhile we met few travellers of rank on the road.  Half the
+nobility of France were still in Paris enjoying the festivities
+which were being held to mark the royal marriage.  We obtained
+horses where we needed them without difficulty.  And though we
+had heard much of the dangers of the way, infested as it was said
+to be by disbanded troopers, we were not once stopped or annoyed.
+
+But it is not my intention to chronicle all the events of this my
+first journey, though I dwell on them with pleasure; or to say
+what I thought of the towns, all new and strange to me, through
+which we passed.  Enough that we went by way of Limoges,
+Chateauroux and Orleans, and that at Chateauroux we learned the
+failure of one hope we had formed.  We had thought that Bezers
+when joined there by his troopers would not be able to get
+relays; and that on this account we might by travelling post
+overtake him; and possibly slip by him between that place and
+Paris.  But we learned at Chateauroux that his troop had received
+fresh orders to go to Orleans and await him there; the result
+being that he was able to push forward with relays so far.  He
+was evidently in hot haste.  For leaving there with his horses
+fresh he passed through Angerville, forty miles short of Paris,
+at noon, whereas we reached it on the evening of the same day--
+the sixth after leaving Caylus.
+
+We rode into the yard of the inn--a large place, seeming larger
+in the dusk--so tired that we could scarcely slip from our
+saddles.  Jean, our servant, took the four horses, and led them
+across to the stables, the poor beasts hanging their heads, and
+following meekly.  We stood a moment stamping our feet, and
+stretching our legs.  The place seemed in a bustle, the clatter
+of pans and dishes proceeding from the windows over the entrance,
+with a glow of light and the sound of feet hurrying in the
+passages.  There were men too, half-a-dozen or so standing at the
+doors of the stables, while others leaned from the windows.  One
+or two lanthorns just kindled glimmered here and there in the
+semi-darkness; and in a corner two smiths were shoeing a horse.
+
+We were turning from all this to go in, when we heard Jean's
+voice raised in altercation, and thinking our rustic servant had
+fallen into trouble, we walked across to the stables near which
+he and the horses were still lingering.  "Well, what is it?"  I
+said sharply.
+
+"They say that there is no room for the horses," Jean answered
+querulously, scratching his head; half sullen, half cowed, a
+country servant all over.
+
+"And there is not!"  cried the foremost of the gang about the
+door, hastening to confront us in turn.  His tone was insolent,
+and it needed but half an eye to see that his fellows were
+inclined to back him up.  He stuck his arms akimbo and faced us
+with an impudent smile.  A lanthorn on the ground beside him
+throwing an uncertain light on the group, I saw that they all
+wore the same badge.
+
+"Come," I said sternly, "the stables are large, and your horses
+cannot fill them.  Some room must be found for mine."
+
+"To be sure!  Make way for the king!"  he retorted.  While one
+jeered "VIVE LE ROI!"  and the rest laughed.  Not good-
+humouredly, but with a touch of spitefulness.
+
+Quarrels between gentlemen's servants were as common then as they
+are to-day.  But the masters seldom condescended to interfere.
+"Let the fellows fight it out," was the general sentiment.  Here,
+however, poor Jean was over-matched, and we had no choice but to
+see to it ourselves.
+
+"Come, men, have a care that you do not get into trouble," I
+urged, restraining Croisette by a touch, for I by no means wished
+to have a repetition of the catastrophe which had happened at
+Caylus.  "These horses belong to the Vicomte de Caylus.  If your
+master be a friend of his, as may very probably be the case, you
+will run the risk of getting into trouble."
+
+I thought I heard, as I stopped speaking, a subdued muttering,
+and fancied I caught the words, "PAPEGOT!  Down with the Guises!"
+But the spokesman's only answer aloud was "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
+"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"  he repeated, flapping his arms in defiance.
+"Here is a cock of a fine hackle!"  And so on, and so forth,
+while he turned grinning to his companions, looking for their
+applause.
+
+I was itching to chastise him, and yet hesitating, lest the thing
+should have its serious side, when a new actor appeared.  "Shame,
+you brutes!"  cried a shrill voice above us in the clouds it
+seemed.  I looked up, and saw two girls, coarse and handsome,
+standing at a window over the stable, a light between them.  "For
+shame!  Don't you see that they are mere children?  Let them be,"
+cried one.
+
+The men laughed louder than ever; and for me, I could not stand
+by and be called a child.  "Come here," I said, beckoning to the
+man in the doorway.  "Come here, you rascal, and I will give you
+the thrashing you deserve for speaking to a gentleman!"
+
+He lounged forward, a heavy fellow, taller than myself and six
+inches wider at the shoulders.  My heart failed me a little as I
+measured him.  But the thing had to be done.  If I was slight, I
+was wiry as a hound, and in the excitement had forgotten my
+fatigue.  I snatched from Marie a loaded riding-whip he carried,
+and stepped forward.
+
+"Have a care, little man!"  cried the girl gaily--yet half in
+pity, I think.  "Or that fat pig will kill you!"
+
+My antagonist did not join in the laugh this time.  Indeed it
+struck me that his eye wandered and that he was not so ready to
+enter the ring as his mates were to form it.  But before I could
+try his mettle, a hand was laid on my shoulder.  A man appearing
+from I do not know where--from the dark fringe of the group, I
+suppose--pushed me aside, roughly, but not discourteously.
+
+"Leave this to me!"  he said, coolly stepping before me.  "Do not
+dirty your hands with the knave, master.  I am pining for work
+and the job will just suit me!  I will fit him for the worms
+before the nuns above can say an AVE!"
+
+I looked at the newcomer.  He was a stout fellow; not over tall,
+nor over big; swarthy, with prominent features.  The plume of his
+bonnet was broken, but he wore it in a rakish fashion; and
+altogether he swaggered with so dare-devil an air, clinking his
+spurs and swinging out his long sword recklessly, that it was no
+wonder three or four of the nearest fellows gave back a foot.
+
+"Come on!"  he cried, boisterously, forming a ring by the simple
+process of sweeping his blade from side to side, while he made
+the dagger in his left hand flash round his head.  "Who is for
+the game?  Who will strike a blow for the little Admiral?  Will
+you come one, two, three at once; or all together?  Anyway, come
+on, you--" And he closed his challenge with a volley of frightful
+oaths, directed at the group opposite.
+
+"It is no quarrel of yours," said the big man, sulkily; making no
+show of drawing his sword, but rather drawing back himself.
+
+"All quarrels are my quarrels!  and no quarrels are your
+quarrels. That is about the truth, I fancy!"  was the smart
+retort; which our champion rendered more emphatic by a playful
+lunge that caused the big bully to skip again.
+
+There was a loud laugh at this, even among the enemy's backers.
+"Bah, the great pig!"  ejaculated the girl above.  "Spit him!"
+and she spat down on the whilom Hector--who made no great figure
+now.
+
+"Shall I bring you a slice of him, my dear?"  asked my rakehelly
+friend, looking up and making his sword play round the shrinking
+wretch.  "Just a tit-bit, my love?"  he added persuasively.  "A
+mouthful of white liver and caper sauce?"
+
+"Not for me, the beast!"  the girl cried, amid the laughter of
+the yard.
+
+"Not a bit?  If I warrant him tender?  Ladies' meat?"
+
+"Bah!  no!"  and she stolidly spat down again.
+
+"Do you hear?  The lady has no taste for you," the tormentor
+cried.  "Pig of a Gascon!"  And deftly sheathing his dagger, he
+seized the big coward by the ear, and turning him round, gave him
+a heavy kick which sent him spinning over a bucket, and down
+against the wall.  There the bully remained, swearing and rubbing
+himself by turns; while the victor cried boastfully, "Enough of
+him.  If anyone wants to take up his quarrel, Blaise Bure is his
+man.  If not, let us have an end of it.  Let someone find stalls
+for the gentlemen's horses before they catch a chill; and have
+done with it.  As for me," he added, and then he turned to us and
+removed his hat with an exaggerated flourish, "I am your
+lordship's servant to command."
+
+I thanked him with a heartiness, half-earnest, half-assumed.  His
+cloak was ragged, his trunk hose, which had once been fine
+enough, were stained, and almost pointless, He swaggered
+inimitably, and had led-captain written large upon him.  But he
+had done us a service, for Jean had no further trouble about the
+horses.  And besides one has a natural liking for a brave man,
+and this man was brave beyond question.
+
+"You are from Orleans," he said respectfully enough, but as one
+asserting a fact, not asking a question.
+
+"Yes," I answered, somewhat astonished, "Did you see us come in?"
+
+"No, but I looked at your boots, gentlemen," he replied.  "White
+dust, north; red dust, south.  Do you see?"
+
+"Yes, I see," I said, with admiration.  "You must have been
+brought up in a sharp school, M. Bure."
+
+"Sharp masters make sharp scholars," he replied, grinning.  And
+that answer I had occasion to remember afterwards.
+
+"You are from Orleans, also?"  I asked, as we prepared to go in.
+
+"Yes, from Orleans too, gentlemen.  But earlier in the day.  With
+letters--letters of importance!"  And bestowing something like a
+wink of confidence on us, he drew himself up, looked sternly at
+the stable-folk, patted himself twice on the chest, and finally
+twirled his moustaches, and smirked at the girl above, who was
+chewing straws.
+
+I thought it likely enough that we might find it hard to get rid
+of him.  But this was not so.  After listening with gratification
+to our repeated thanks, he bowed with the same grotesque
+flourish, and marched off as grave as a Spaniard, humming--
+
+  "Ce petit homme tant joli!
+  Qui toujours cause et toujours rit,
+  Qui toujours baise sa mignonne,
+  Dieu gard' de mal ce petit homme!"
+
+On our going in, the landlord met us politely, but with
+curiosity, and a simmering of excitement also in his manner.
+"From Paris, my lords?"  he asked, rubbing his hands and bowing
+low.  "Or from the south?"
+
+"From the south," I answered.  "From Orleans, and hungry and
+tired, Master Host."
+
+"Ah!"  he replied, disregarding the latter part of my answer,
+while his little eyes twinkled with satisfaction.  "Then I dare
+swear, my lords, you have not heard the news?"  He halted in the
+narrow passage, and lifting the candle he carried, scanned our
+faces closely, as if he wished to learn something about us before
+he spoke.
+
+"News!"  I answered brusquely, being both tired, and as I had
+told him, hungry.  "We have heard none, and the best you can give
+us will be that our supper is ready to be served."
+
+But even this snub did not check his eagerness to tell his news.
+"The Admiral de Coligny," he said, breathlessly, "you have not
+heard what has happened to him?"
+
+"To the admiral?  No, what?"  I inquired rapidly.  I was
+interested at last.
+
+For a moment let me digress.  The few of my age will remember,
+and the many younger will have been told, that at this time the
+Italian queen-mother was the ruling power in France.  It was
+Catharine de' Medici's first object to maintain her influence
+over Charles the Ninth--her son; who, ricketty, weak, and
+passionate, was already doomed to an early grave.  Her second, to
+support the royal power by balancing the extreme Catholics
+against the Huguenots.  For the latter purpose she would coquet
+first with one party, then with the other.  At the present moment
+she had committed herself more deeply than was her wont to the
+Huguenots.  Their leaders, the Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the
+King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde, were supposed to be
+high in favour, while the chiefs of the other party, the Duke of
+Guise, and the two Cardinals of his house, the Cardinal of
+Lorraine and the Cardinal of Guise, were in disgrace; which, as
+it seemed, even their friend at court, the queen's favourite son,
+Henry of Anjou, was unable to overcome.
+
+Such was the outward aspect of things in August, 1572, but there
+were not wanting rumours that already Coligny, taking advantage
+of the footing given him, had gained an influence over the young
+king, which threatened Catharine de' Medici herself.  The
+admiral, therefore, to whom the Huguenot half of France had long
+looked as to its leader, was now the object of the closest
+interest to all; the Guise faction, hating him--as the alleged
+assassin of the Duke of Guise--with an intensity which probably
+was not to be found in the affection of his friends, popular with
+the latter as he was.
+
+Still, many who were not Huguenots had a regard for him as a
+great Frenchman and a gallant soldier.  We--though we were of the
+old faith, and the other side--had heard much of him, and much
+good.  The Vicomte had spoken of him always as a great man, a man
+mistaken, but brave, honest and capable in his error.  Therefore
+it was that when the landlord mentioned him, I forgot even my
+hunger.
+
+"He was shot, my lords, as he passed through the Rue des Fosses,
+yesterday," the man declared with bated breath.  "It is not known
+whether he will live or die.  Paris is in an uproar, and there
+are some who fear the worst."
+
+"But," I said doubtfully, "who has dared to do this?  He had a
+safe conduct from the king himself."
+
+Our host did not answer; shrugging his shoulders instead, he
+opened the door, and ushered us into the eating-room.
+
+Some preparations for our meal had already been made at one end
+of the long board.  At the other was seated a man past middle
+age; richly but simply dressed.  His grey hair, cut short about a
+massive head, and his grave, resolute face, square-jawed, and
+deeply-lined, marked him as one to whom respect was due apart
+from his clothes.  We bowed to him as we took our seats.
+
+He acknowledged the salute, fixing us a moment with a penetrating
+glance; and then resumed his meal.  I noticed that his sword and
+belt were propped against a chair at his elbow, and a dag,
+apparently loaded, lay close to his hand by the candlestick.  Two
+lackeys waited behind his chair, wearing the badge we had
+remarked in the inn yard.
+
+We began to talk, speaking in low tones that we might not disturb
+him.  The attack on Coligny had, if true, its bearing on our own
+business.  For if a Huguenot so great and famous and enjoying the
+king's special favour still went in Paris in danger of his life,
+what must be the risk that such an one as Pavannes ran?  We had
+hoped to find the city quiet.  If instead it should be in a state
+of turmoil Bezers' chances were so much the better; and ours
+--and Kit's, poor Kit's--so much the worse.
+
+Our companion had by this time finished his supper.  But he still
+sat at table, and seemed to be regarding us with some curiosity.
+At length he spoke.  "Are you going to Paris, young gentlemen?"
+he asked, his tone harsh and high-pitched.
+
+We answered in the affirmative.  "To-morrow?"  he questioned.
+
+"Yes," we answered; and expected him to continue the
+conversation.  But instead he became silent, gazing abstractedly
+at the table; and what with our meal, and our own talk we had
+almost forgotten him again, when looking up, I found him at my
+elbow, holding out in silence a small piece of paper.
+
+I started his face was so grave.  But seeing that there were
+half-a-dozen guests of a meaner sort at another table close by, I
+guessed that he merely wished to make a private communication to
+us; and hastened to take the paper and read it.  It contained a
+scrawl of four words only--
+
+  "Va chasser l'Idole."
+
+No more.  I looked at him puzzled; able to make nothing out of
+it.  St. Croix wrinkled his brow over it with the same result.
+It was no good handing it to Marie, therefore.
+
+"You do not understand?"  the stranger continued, as he put the
+scrap of paper back in his pouch.
+
+"No," I answered, shaking my head.  We had all risen out of
+respect to him, and were standing a little group about him.
+
+"Just so; it is all right then," he answered, looking at us as it
+seemed to me with grave good-nature.  "It is nothing.  Go your
+way.  But--I have a son yonder not much younger than you, young
+gentlemen.  And if you had understood, I should have said to you,
+'Do not go!  There are enough sheep for the shearer!'"
+
+He was turning away with this oracular saying when Croisette
+touched his sleeve.  "Pray can you tell us if it be true," the
+lad said eagerly, "that the Admiral de Coligny was wounded
+yesterday?"
+
+"It is true," the other answered, turning his grave eyes on his
+questioner, while for a moment his stern look failed him, "It is
+true, my boy," he added with an air of strange solemnity.  "Whom
+the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.  And, God forgive me for saying
+it, whom He would destroy, He first maketh mad."
+
+He had gazed with peculiar favour at Croisette's girlish face, I
+thought:  Marie and I were dark and ugly by the side of the boy.
+But he turned from him now with a queer, excited gesture,
+thumping his gold-headed cane on the floor.  He called his
+servants in a loud, rasping voice, and left the room in seeming
+anger, driving them before him, the one carrying his dag, and the
+other, two candles.
+
+When I came down early next morning, the first person I met was
+Blaise Bure.  He looked rather fiercer and more shabby by
+daylight than candlelight.  But he saluted me respectfully; and
+this, since it was clear that he did not respect many people,
+inclined me to regard him with favour.  It is always so, the more
+savage the dog, the more highly we prize its attentions.  I asked
+him who the Huguenot noble was who had supped with us.  For a
+Huguenot we knew he must be.
+
+"The Baron de Rosny," he answered; adding with a sneer, "He is a
+careful man!  If they were all like him, with eyes on both sides
+of his head and a dag by his candle--well, my lord, there would
+be one more king in France--or one less!  But they are a blind
+lot:  as blind as bats."  He muttered something farther in which
+I caught the word "to-night."  But I did not hear it all; or
+understand any of it.
+
+"Your lordships are going to Paris?"  he resumed in a different
+tone.  When I said that we were, he looked at me in a shamefaced
+way, half timid, half arrogant.  "I have a small favour to ask of
+you then," he said.  "I am going to Paris myself.  I am not
+afraid of odds, as you have seen.  But the roads will be in a
+queer state if there be anything on foot in the city, and--well,
+I would rather ride with you gentlemen than alone."
+
+"You are welcome to join us," I said.  "But we start in half-an-
+hour.  Do you know Paris well?"
+
+"As well as my sword-hilt," he replied briskly, relieved I
+thought by my acquiescence, "And I have known that from my
+breeching.  If you want a game at PAUME, or a pretty girl to
+kiss, I can put you in the way for the one or the other."
+
+The half rustic shrinking from the great city which I felt,
+suggested to me that our swashbuckling friend might help us if he
+would.  "Do you know M. de Pavannes?"  I asked impulsively,
+"Where he lives in Paris, I mean?"
+
+"M. Louis de Pavannes?"  quoth he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I know--" he replied slowly, rubbing his chin and looking at the
+ground in thought--"where he had his lodgings in town a while
+ago, before--Ah!  I do know!  I remember," he added, slapping his
+thigh, "when I was in Paris a fortnight ago I was told that his
+steward had taken lodgings for him in the Rue St. Antoine."
+
+"Good!"  I answered overjoyed.  "Then we want to dismount there,
+if you can guide us straight to the house."
+
+"I can," he replied simply.  "And you will not be the worse for
+my company.  Paris is a queer place when there is trouble to the
+fore, but your lordships have got the right man to pilot you
+through it."
+
+I did not ask him what trouble he meant, but ran indoors to
+buckle on my sword, and tell Marie and Croisette of the ally I
+had secured.  They were much pleased, as was natural; so that we
+took the road in excellent spirits intending to reach the city in
+the afternoon.  But Marie's horse cast a shoe, and it was some
+time before we could find a smith.  Then at Etampes, where we
+stopped to lunch, we were kept an unconscionable time waiting for
+it.  And so we approached Paris for the first time at sunset.  A
+ruddy glow was at the moment warming the eastern heights, and
+picking out with flame the twin towers of Notre Dame, and the one
+tall tower of St. Jacques la Boucherie.  A dozen roofs higher
+than their neighbours shone hotly; and a great bank of cloud,
+which lay north and south, and looked like a man's hand stretched
+over the city, changed gradually from blood-red to violet, and
+from violet to black, as evening fell.
+
+Passing within the gates and across first one bridge and then
+another, we were astonished and utterly confused by the noise and
+hubbub through which we rode.  Hundreds seemed to be moving this
+way and that in the narrow streets.  Women screamed to one
+another from window to window.  The bells of half-a-dozen
+churches rang the curfew.  Our country ears were deafened.  Still
+our eyes had leisure to take in the tall houses with their high-
+pitched roofs, and here and there a tower built into the wall;
+the quaint churches, and the groups of townsfolk--sullen fellows
+some of them with a fierce gleam in their eyes---who, standing in
+the mouths of reeking alleys, watched us go by.
+
+But presently we had to stop.  A crowd had gathered to watch a
+little cavalcade of six gentlemen pass across our path.  They
+were riding two and two, lounging in their saddles and chattering
+to one another, distainfully unconscious of the people about
+them, or the remarks they excited.  Their graceful bearing and
+the richness of their dress and equipment surpassed anything I
+had ever seen.  A dozen pages and lackeys were attending them on
+foot, and the sound of their jests and laughter came to us over
+the heads of the crowd.
+
+While I was gazing at them, some movement of the throng drove
+back Bure's horse against mine.  Bure himself uttered a savage
+oath; uncalled for so far as I could see.  But my attention was
+arrested the next moment by Croisette, who tapped my arm with his
+riding whip.  "Look!"  he cried in some excitement, "is not that
+he?"
+
+I followed the direction of the lad's finger--as well as I could
+for the plunging of my horse which Bure's had frightened--and
+scrutinized the last pair of the troop.  They were crossing the
+street in which we stood, and I had only a side view of them; or
+rather of the nearer rider.  He was a singularly handsome man, in
+age about twenty-two or twenty-three with long lovelocks falling
+on his lace collar and cloak of orange silk.  His face was sweet
+and kindly and gracious to a marvel.  But he was a stranger to
+me.
+
+"I could have sworn," exclaimed Croisette, "that that was Louis
+himself--M. de Pavannes!"
+
+"That?"  I answered, as we began to move again, the crowd melting
+before us.  "Oh, dear, no!"
+
+"No!  no!  The farther man!"  he explained.
+
+But I had not been able to get a good look at the farther of the
+two.  We turned in our saddles and peered after him.  His back in
+the dusk certainly reminded me of Louis.  Bure, however, who said
+he knew M. de Pavannes by sight, laughed at the idea.  "Your
+friend," he said, "is a wider man than that!"  And I thought he
+was right there--but then it might be the cut of the clothes.
+"They have been at the Louvre playing paume, I'll be sworn!"  he
+went on.  "So the Admiral must be better.  The one next us was M.
+de Teligny, the Admiral's son-in-law.  And the other, whom you
+mean, was the Comte de la Rochefoucault."
+
+We turned as he spoke into a narrow street near the river, and
+could see not far from us a mass of dark buildings which Bure
+told us was the Louvre--the king's residence.  Out of this street
+we turned into a short one; and here Bure drew rein and rapped
+loudly at some heavy gates.  It was so dark that when, these
+being opened, he led the way into a courtyard, we could see
+little more than a tall, sharp-gabled house, projecting over us
+against a pale sky; and a group of men and horses in one corner.
+Bure spoke to one of the men, and begging us to dismount, said
+the footman would show us to M. de Pavannes.
+
+The thought that we were at the end of our long journey, and in
+time to warn Louis of his danger, made us forget all our
+exertions, our fatigue and stiffness.  Gladly throwing the
+bridles to Jean we ran up the steps after the servant.  The thing
+was done.  Hurrah!  the thing was done!
+
+The house--as we passed through a long passage and up some steps
+--seemed full of people.  We heard voices and the ring of arms
+more than once.  But our guide, without pausing, led us to a
+small room lighted by a hanging lamp.  "I will inform M. de
+Pavannes of your arrival," he said respectfully, and passed
+behind a curtain, which seemed to hide the door of an inner
+apartment.  As he did so the clink of glasses and the hum of
+conversation reached us.
+
+"He has company supping with him," I said nervously.  I tried to
+flip some of the dust from my boots with my whip.  I remembered
+that this was Paris.
+
+"He will be surprised to see us," quoth Croisette, laughing--a
+little shyly, too, I think.  And so we stood waiting.
+
+I began to wonder as minutes passed by--the gay company we had
+seen putting it in my mind, I suppose--whether M. de Pavannes, of
+Paris, might not turn out to be a very different person from
+Louis de Pavannes, of Caylus; whether the king's courtier would
+be as friendly as Kit's lover.  And I was still thinking of this
+without having settled the point to my satisfaction, when the
+curtain was thrust aside again.  A very tall man, wearing a
+splendid suit of black and silver and a stiff trencher-like ruff,
+came quickly in, and stood smiling at us, a little dog in his
+arms.  The little dog sat up and snarled:  and Croisette gasped.
+It was not our old friend Louis certainly!  It was not Louis de
+Pavannes at all.  It was no old friend at all, It was the Vidame
+de Bezers!
+
+"Welcome, gentlemen!"  he said, smiling at us--and never had the
+cast been so apparent in his eyes.  "Welcome to Paris, M. Anne!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ENTRAPPED!
+
+There was a long silence.  We stood glaring at him, and he smiled
+upon us--as a cat smiles.  Croisette told me afterwards that he
+could have died of mortification--of shame and anger that we had
+been so outwitted.  For myself I did not at once grasp the
+position.  I did not understand.  I could not disentangle myself
+in a moment from the belief in which I had entered the house--
+that it was Louis de Pavannes' house.  But I seemed vaguely to
+suspect that Bezers had swept him aside and taken his place.  My
+first impulse therefore--obeyed on the instant--was to stride to
+the Vidame's side and grasp his arm.  "What have you done?"  I
+cried, my voice sounding hoarsely even in my own ears.  "What
+have you done with M. de Pavannes?  Answer me!"
+
+He showed just a little more of his sharp white teeth as he
+looked down at my face--a flushed and troubled face doubtless.
+"Nothing--yet," he replied very mildly.  And he shook me off.
+
+"Then," I retorted, "how do you come here?"
+
+He glanced at Croisette and shrugged his shoulders, as if I had
+been a spoiled child.  "M. Anne does not seem to understand," he
+said with mock courtesy, "that I have the honour to welcome him
+to my house the Hotel Bezers, Rue de Platriere."
+
+"The Hotel Bezers!  Rue de Platriere!"  I cried confusedly.  "But
+Blaise Bure told us that this was the Rue St. Antoine!"
+
+"Ah!"  he replied as if slowly enlightened--the hypocrite!  "Ah!
+I see!"  and he smiled grimly.  "So you have made the
+acquaintance of Blaise Bure, my excellent master of the horse!
+Worthy Blaise! Indeed, indeed, now I understand.  And you
+thought, you whelps," he continued, and as he spoke his tone
+changed strangely, and he fixed us suddenly with angry eyes, "to
+play a rubber with me!  With me, you imbeciles!  You thought the
+wolf of Bezers could be hunted down like any hare!  Then listen,
+and I will tell you the end of it.  You are now in my house and
+absolutely at my mercy.  I have two score men within call who
+would cut the throats of three babes at the breast, if I bade
+them!  Ay," he, added, a wicked exultation shining in his eyes,
+"they would, and like the job!"
+
+He was going on to say more, but I interrupted him.  The rage I
+felt, caused as much by the thought of our folly as by his
+arrogance, would let me be silent no longer.  "First, M. de
+Bezers, first," I broke out fiercely, my words leaping over one
+another in my haste, "a word with you!  Let me tell you what I
+think of you!  You are a treacherous hound, Vidame!  A cur!  a
+beast!  And I spit upon you!  Traitor and assassin!"  I shouted,
+"is that not enough?  Will nothing provoke you?  If you call
+yourself a gentleman, draw!"
+
+He shook his head; he was still smiling, still unmoved.  "I do
+not do my own dirty work," he said quietly, "nor stint my footmen
+of their sport, boy."
+
+"Very well!"  I retorted.  And with the words I drew my sword,
+and sprang as quick as lightning to the curtain by which he had
+entered.  "Very well, we will kill you first!"  I cried
+wrathfully, my eye on his eye, and every savage passion in my
+breast aroused, "and take our chance with the lackeys afterwards!
+Marie!  Croisette!"  I cried shrilly, "on him, lads!"
+
+But they did not answer!  They did not move or draw.  For the
+moment indeed the man was in my power.  My wrist was raised, and
+I had my point at his breast, I could have run him through by a
+single thrust.  And I hated him.  Oh, how I hated him!  But he
+did not stir.  Had he spoken, had he moved so much as an eyelid,
+or drawn back his foot, or laid his hand on his hilt, I should
+have killed him there.  But he did not stir and I could not do
+it.  My hand dropped.  "Cowards!"  I cried, glancing bitterly
+from him to them--they had never failed me before.  "Cowards!"  I
+muttered, seeming to shrink into myself as I said the word.  And
+I flung my sword clattering on the floor.
+
+"That is better!"  he drawled quite unmoved, as if nothing more
+than words had passed, as if he had not been in peril at all.
+"It was what I was going to ask you to do.  If the other young
+gentlemen will follow your example, I shall be obliged.  Thank
+you.  Thank you."
+
+Croisette, and a minute later Marie, obeyed him to the letter!  I
+could not understand it.  I folded my arms and gave up the game
+in despair, and but for very shame I could have put my hands to
+my face and cried.  He stood in the middle under the lamp, a head
+taller than the tallest of us; our master.  And we stood round
+him trapped, beaten, for all the world like children.  Oh, I
+could have cried!  This was the end of our long ride, our
+aspirations, our knight-errantry!
+
+"Now perhaps you will listen to me," he went on smoothly, "and
+hear what I am going to do.  I shall keep you here, young
+gentlemen, until you can serve me by carrying to mademoiselle,
+your cousin, some news of her betrothed.  Oh, I shall not detain
+you long," he added with an evil smile.  "You have arrived in
+Paris at a fortunate moment.  There is going to be a--well, there
+is a little scheme on foot appointed for to-night--singularly
+lucky you are!--for removing some objectionable people, some
+friends of ours perhaps among them, M. Anne.  That is all.  You
+will hear shots, cries, perhaps screams.  Take no notice.  You
+will be in no danger.  For M. de Pavannes," he continued, his
+voice sinking, "I think that by morning I shall be able to give
+you a--a more particular account of him to take to Caylus--to
+Mademoiselle, you understand."
+
+For a moment the mask was off.  His face took a sombre
+brightness.  He moistened his lips with his tongue as though he
+saw his vengeance worked out then and there before him, and were
+gloating over the picture.  The idea that this was so took such a
+hold upon me that I shrank back, shuddering; reading too in
+Croisette's face the same thought--and a late repentance.  Nay,
+the malignity of Bezers' tone, the savage gleam of joy in his
+eyes appalled me to such an extent that I fancied for a moment I
+saw in him the devil incarnate!
+
+He recovered his composure very quickly, however; and turned
+carelessly towards the door.  "If you will follow me," he said,
+"I will see you disposed of.  You may have to complain of your
+lodging--I have other things to think of to-night than
+hospitality, But you shall not need to complain of your supper."
+
+He drew aside the curtain as he spoke, and passed into the next
+room before us, not giving a thought apparently to the
+possibility that we might strike him from behind.  There
+certainly was an odd quality apparent in him at times which
+seemed to contradict what we knew of him.
+
+The room we entered was rather long than wide, hung with
+tapestry, and lighted by silver lamps.  Rich plate, embossed, I
+afterwards learned, by Cellini the Florentine--who died that year
+I remember--and richer glass from Venice, with a crowd of meaner
+vessels filled with meats and drinks covered the table;
+disordered as by the attacks of a numerous party.  But save a
+servant or two by the distant dresser, and an ecclesiastic at the
+far end of the table, the room was empty.
+
+The priest rose as we entered, the Vidame saluting him as if they
+had not met that day.  "You are welcome M. le Coadjuteur," he
+said; saying it coldly, however, I thought.  And the two eyed one
+another with little favour; rather as birds of prey about to
+quarrel over the spoil, than as host and guest.  Perhaps the
+Coadjutor's glittering eyes and great beak-like nose made me
+think of this.
+
+"Ho!  ho!"  he said, looking piercingly at us--and no doubt we
+must have seemed a miserable and dejected crew enough.  "Who are
+these?  Not the first-fruits of the night, eh?"
+
+The Vidame looked darkly at him.  "No," he answered brusquely.
+"They are not.  I am not particular out of doors, Coadjutor, as
+you know, but this is my house, and we are going to supper.
+Perhaps you do not comprehend the distinction.  Still it exists
+--for me," with a sneer.
+
+This was as good as Greek to us.  But I so shrank from the
+priest's malignant eyes, which would not quit us, and felt so
+much disgust mingled with my anger that when Bezers by a gesture
+invited me to sit down, I drew back.  "I will not eat with you,"
+I said sullenly; speaking out of a kind of dull obstinacy, or
+perhaps a childish petulance.
+
+It did not occur to me that this would pierce the Vidame's
+armour.  Yet a dull red showed for an instant in his cheek, and
+he eyed me with a look, that was not all ferocity, though the
+veins in his great temples swelled.  A moment, nevertheless, and
+he was himself again.  "Armand," he said quietly to the servant,
+"these gentlemen will not sup with me.  Lay for them at the other
+end."
+
+Men are odd.  The moment he gave way to me I repented of my
+words.  It was almost with reluctance that I followed the servant
+to the lower part of the table.  More than this, mingled with the
+hatred I felt for the Vidame, there was now a strange sentiment
+towards him--almost of admiration; that had its birth I think in
+the moment, when I held his life in my hand, and he had not
+flinched.
+
+We ate in silence; even after Croisette by grasping my hand under
+the table had begged me not to judge him hastily.  The two at the
+upper end talked fast, and from the little that reached us, I
+judged that the priest was pressing some course on his host,
+which the latter declined to take.
+
+Once Bezers raised his voice.  "I have my own ends to serve!"  he
+broke out angrily, adding a fierce oath which the priest did not
+rebuke, "and I shall serve them.  But there I stop.  You have
+your own.  Well, serve them, but do not talk to me of the cause!
+The cause?  To hell with the cause!  I have my cause, and you
+have yours, and my lord of Guise has his!  And you will not make
+me believe that there is any other!"
+
+"The king's?"  suggested the priest, smiling sourly.
+
+"Say rather the Italian woman's!"  the Vidame answered
+recklessly--meaning the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici, I
+supposed.
+
+"Well, then, the cause of the Church?"  the priest persisted.
+
+"Bah!  The Church?  It is you, my friend!"  Bezers rejoined,
+rudely tapping his companion--at that moment in the act of
+crossing himself--on the chest.  "The Church?"  he continued;
+"no, no, my friend.  I will tell you what you are doing.  You
+want me to help you to get rid of your branch, and you offer in
+return to aid me with mine--and then, say you, there will be no
+stick left to beat either of us.  But you may understand once for
+all"--and the Vidame struck his hand heavily down among the
+glasses--"that I will have no interference with my work, master
+Clerk!  None!  Do you hear?  And as for yours, it is no business
+of mine.  That is plain speaking, is it not?"
+
+The priest's hand shook as he raised a full glass to his lips,
+but he made no rejoinder, and the Vidame, seeing we had finished,
+rose.  "Armand!"  he cried, his face still dark, "take these
+gentlemen to their chamber.  You understand?"
+
+We stiffly acknowledged his salute--the priest taking no notice
+of us--and followed the servant from the room; going along a
+corridor and up a steep flight of stairs, and seeing enough by
+the way to be sure that resistance was hopeless.  Doors opened
+silently as we passed, and grim fellows, in corslets and padded
+coats, peered out.  The clank of arms and murmur of voices
+sounded continuously about us; and as we passed a window the
+jingle of bits, and the hollow clang of a restless hoof on the
+flags below, told us that the great house was for the time a
+fortress.  I wondered much.  For this was Paris, a city with
+gates and guards; the night a short August night.  Yet the
+loneliest manor in Quercy could scarcely have bristled with more
+pikes and musquetoons, on a winter's night and in time of war.
+
+No doubt these signs impressed us all; and Croisette not least.
+For suddenly I heard him stop, as he followed us up the narrow
+staircase, and begin without warning to stumble down again as
+fast as he could.  I did not know what he was about; but
+muttering something to Marie, I followed the lad to see.  At the
+foot of the flight of stairs I looked back, Marie and the servant
+were standing in suspense, where I had left them.  I heard the
+latter bid us angrily to return.
+
+But by this time Croisette was at the end of the corridor; and
+reassuring the fellow by a gesture I hurried on, until brought to
+a standstill by a man opening a door in my face.  He had heard
+our returning footsteps, and eyed me suspiciously; but gave way
+after a moment with a grunt of doubt I hastened on, reaching the
+door of the room in which we had supped in time to see something
+which filled me with grim astonishment; so much so that I stood
+rooted where I was, too proud at any rate to interfere.
+
+Bezers was standing, the leering priest at his elbow.  And
+Croisette was stooping forward, his hands stretched out in an
+attitude of supplication.
+
+"Nay, but M. le Vidame," the lad cried, as I stood, the door in
+my hand, "it were better to stab her at once than break her
+heart!  Have pity on her!  If you kill him, you kill her!"
+
+The Vidame was silent, seeming to glower on the boy.  The priest
+sneered.  "Hearts are soon mended--especially women's," he said.
+
+"But not Kit's!"  Croisette said passionately--otherwise ignoring
+him.  "Not Kit's!  You do not know her, Vidame!  Indeed you do
+not!"
+
+The remark was ill-timed.  I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers'
+face.  "Get up, boy!"  he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what
+I would do, and that I shall do!  A Bezers keeps his word.  By
+the God above us--if there be a God, and in the devil's name I
+doubt it to-night!--I shall keep mine!  Go!"
+
+His great face was full of rage.  He looked over Croisette's head
+as he spoke, as if appealing to the Great Registrar of his vow,
+in the very moment in which he all but denied Him.  I turned and
+stole back the way I had come; and heard Croisette follow.
+
+That little scene completed my misery.  After that I seemed to
+take no heed of anything or anybody until I was aroused by the
+grating of our gaoler's key in the lock, and became aware that he
+was gone, and that we were alone in a small room under the tiles.
+He had left the candle on the floor, and we three stood round it.
+Save for the long shadows we cast on the walls and two pallets
+hastily thrown down in one corner, the place was empty.  I did
+not look much at it, and I would not look at the others.  I flung
+myself on one of the pallets and turned my face to the wall,
+despairing.  I thought bitterly of the failure we had made of it,
+and of the Vidame's triumph.  I cursed St. Croix especially for
+that last touch of humiliation he had set to it.  Then,
+forgetting myself as my anger abated, I thought of Kit so far
+away at Caylus--of Kit's pale, gentle face, and her sorrow.  And
+little by little I forgave Croisette.  After all he had not
+begged for us--he had not stooped for our sakes, but for hers.
+
+I do not know how long I lay at see-saw between these two moods.
+Or whether during that time the others talked or were silent,
+moved about the room or lay still.  But it was Croisette's hand
+on my shoulder, touching me with a quivering eagerness that
+instantly communicated itself to my limbs, which recalled me to
+the room and its shadows.  "Anne!"  he cried.  "Anne!  Are you
+awake?"
+
+"What is it?"  I said, sitting up and looking at him.
+
+"Marie," he began, "has--"
+
+But there was no need for him to finish.  I saw that Marie was
+standing at the far side of the room by the unglazed window;
+which, being in a sloping part of the roof, inclined slightly
+also.  He had raised the shutter which closed it, and on his tip-
+toes--for the sill was almost his own height from the floor--was
+peering out.  I looked sharply at Croisette.  "Is there a gutter
+outside?"  I whispered, beginning to tingle all over as the
+thought of escape for the first time occurred to me.
+
+"No," he answered in the same tone.  "But Marie says he can see a
+beam below, which he thinks we can reach."
+
+I sprang up, promptly displaced Marie, and looked out.  When my
+eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I discerned a dark chaos of
+roofs and gables stretching as far as I could see before me.
+Nearer, immediately under the window, yawned a chasm--a narrow
+street.  Beyond this was a house rather lower than that in which
+we were, the top of its roof not quite reaching the level of my
+eyes.
+
+"I see no beam," I said.
+
+"Look below!"  quoth Marie, stolidly,
+
+I did so, and then saw that fifteen or sixteen feet below our
+window there was a narrow beam which ran from our house to the
+opposite one--for the support of both, as is common in towns.  In
+the shadow near the far end of this--it was so directly under our
+window that I could only see the other end of it--I made out a
+casement, faintly illuminated from within.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"We cannot get down to it," I said, measuring the distance to the
+beam and the depth below it, and shivering.
+
+"Marie says we can, with a short rope," Croisette replied.  His
+eyes were glistening with excitement.
+
+"But we have no rope!"  I retorted.  I was dull--as usual.  Marie
+made no answer.  Surely he was the most stolid and silent of
+brothers.  I turned to him.  He was taking off his waistcoat and
+neckerchief.
+
+"Good!"  I cried.  I began to see now.  Off came our scarves and
+kerchiefs also, and fortunately they were of home make, long and
+strong.  And Marie had a hank of four-ply yarn in his pocket as
+it turned out, and I had some stout new garters, and two or three
+yards of thin cord, which I had brought to mend the girths, if
+need should arise.  In five minutes we had fastened them
+cunningly together.
+
+"I am the lightest," said Croisette.
+
+"But Marie has the steadiest head," I objected.  We had learned
+that long ago--that Marie could walk the coping-stones of the
+battlements with as little concern as we paced a plank set on the
+ground.
+
+"True," Croisette had to admit.  "But he must come last, because
+whoever does so will have to let himself down."
+
+I had not thought of that, and I nodded.  It seemed that the lead
+was passing out of my hands and I might resign myself.  Still one
+thing I would have.  As Marie was to come last, I would go first.
+My weight would best test the rope.  And accordingly it was so
+decided.
+
+There was no time to be lost.  At any moment we might be
+interrupted.  So the plan was no sooner conceived than carried
+out.  The rope was made fast to my left wrist.  Then I mounted on
+Marie's shoulders, and climbed--not without quavering--through
+the window, taking as little time over it as possible, for a bell
+was already proclaiming midnight.
+
+All this I had done on the spur of the moment.  But outside,
+hanging by my hands in the darkness, the strokes of the great
+bell in my ears, I had a moment in which to think.  The sense of
+the vibrating depth below me, the airiness, the space and gloom
+around, frightened me.  "Are you ready?"  muttered Marie, perhaps
+with a little impatience.  He had not a scrap of imagination, had
+Marie.
+
+"No!  wait a minute!"  I blurted out, clinging to the sill, and
+taking a last look at the bare room, and the two dark figures
+between me and the light.  "No!"  I added, hurriedly.
+"Croisette--boys, I called you cowards just now.  I take it back!
+I did not mean it!  That is all!"  I gasped.  "Let go!"
+
+A warm touch on my hand.  Something like a sob.
+
+The next moment I felt myself sliding down the face of the house,
+down into the depth.  The light shot up.  My head turned giddily.
+I clung, oh, how I clung to that rope!  Half way down the thought
+struck me that in case of accident those above might not be
+strong enough to pull me up again.  But it was too late to think
+of that, and in another second my feet touched the beam.  I
+breathed again.  Softly, very gingerly, I made good my footing on
+the slender bridge, and, disengaging the rope, let it go.  Then,
+not without another qualm, I sat down astride of the beam, and
+whistled in token of success.  Success so far!
+
+It was a strange position, and I have often dreamed of it since.
+In the darkness about me Paris lay to all seeming asleep.  A
+veil, and not the veil of night only, was stretched between it
+and me; between me, a mere lad, and the strange secrets of a
+great city; stranger, grimmer, more deadly that night than ever
+before or since.  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.  I
+fancied, as I sat in the darkness astride of my beam, that I
+could see, closing the narrow vista of the street, the heavy mass
+of the Louvre; and that the murmur of voices and the tramp of men
+assembling came from its courts, with now and again the stealthy
+challenge of a sentry, the restrained voice of an officer.
+Scarcely a wayfarer passed beneath me:  so few, indeed, that I
+had no fear of being detected from below.  And yet unless I was
+mistaken, a furtive step, a subdued whisper were borne to me on
+every breeze, from every quarter.  And the night was full of
+phantoms.
+
+Perhaps all this was mere nervousness, the outcome of my
+position.  At any rate I felt no more of it when Croisette joined
+me.  We had our daggers, and that gave me some comfort.  If we
+could once gain entrance to the house opposite, we had only to
+beg, or in the last resort force our way downstairs and out, and
+then to hasten with what speed we might to Pavannes' dwelling.
+Clearly it was a question of time only now; whether Bezers' band
+or we should first reach it.  And struck by this I whispered
+Marie to be quick.  He seemed to be long in coming.
+
+He scrambled down hand over hand at last, and then I saw that he
+had not lingered above for nothing.  He had contrived after
+getting out of the window to let down the shutter.  And more he
+had at some risk lengthened our rope, and made a double line of
+it, so that it ran round a hinge of the shutter; and when he
+stood beside us, he took it by one end and disengaged it.  Good,
+clever Marie!
+
+"Bravo!"  I said softly, clapping him on the back.  "Now they
+will not know which way the birds have flown!"
+
+So there we all were, one of us, I confess, trembling.  We slid
+easily enough along the beam to the opposite house.  But once
+there in a row one behind the other with our faces to the wall,
+and the night air blowing slantwise--well I am nervous on a
+height and I gasped.  The window was a good six feet above the
+beam, The casement--it was unglazed--was open, veiled by a thin
+curtain, and alas!  protected by three horizontal bars--stout
+bars they looked.
+
+Yet we were bound to get up, and to get in; and I was preparing
+to rise to my feet on the giddy bridge as gingerly as I could,
+when Marie crawled quickly over us, and swung himself up to the
+narrow sill, much as I should mount a horse on the level.  He
+held out his foot to me, and making an effort I reached the same
+dizzy perch.  Croisette for the time remained below.
+
+A narrow window-ledge sixty feet above the pavement, and three
+bars to cling to!  I cowered to my holdfasts, envying even
+Croisette.  My legs dangled airily, and the black chasm of the
+street seemed to yawn for me.  For a moment I turned sick.  I
+recovered from that to feel desperate.  I remembered that go
+forward we must, bars or no bars.  We could not regain our old
+prison if we would.
+
+It was equally clear that we could not go forward if the inmates
+should object.  On that narrow perch even Marie was helpless.
+The bars of the window were close together.  A woman, a child,
+could disengage our hands, and then--I turned sick again.  I
+thought of the cruel stones.  I glued my face to the bars, and
+pushing aside a corner of the curtain, looked in.
+
+There was only one person in the room--a woman, who was moving
+about fully dressed, late as it was.  The room was a mere attic,
+the counterpart of that we had left.  A box-bed with a canopy
+roughly nailed over it stood in a corner.  A couple of chairs
+were by the hearth, and all seemed to speak of poverty and
+bareness.  Yet the woman whom we saw was richly dressed, though
+her silks and velvets were disordered.  I saw a jewel gleam in
+her hair, and others on her hands.  When she turned her face
+towards us--a wild, beautiful face, perplexed and tear-stained--I
+knew her instantly for a gentlewoman, and when she walked hastily
+to the door, and laid her hand upon it, and seemed to listen--
+when she shook the latch and dropped her hands in despair and
+went back to the hearth, I made another discovery I knew at once,
+seeing her there, that we were likely but to change one prison
+for another.  Was every house in Paris then a dungeon?  And did
+each roof cover its tragedy?
+
+"Madame!"  I said, speaking softly, to attract her attention.
+"Madame!"
+
+She started violently, not knowing whence the sound came, and
+looked round, at the door first.  Then she moved towards the
+window, and with an affrighted gesture drew the curtain rapidly
+aside.
+
+Our eyes met.  What if she screamed and aroused the house?  What,
+indeed?  "Madame," I said again, speaking hurriedly, and striving
+to reassure her by the softness of my voice, "we implore your
+help!  Unless you assist us we are lost."
+
+"You!  Who are you?"  she cried, glaring at us wildly, her hand
+to her head.  And then she murmured to herself, "Mon Dieu!  what
+will become of me?"
+
+"We have been imprisoned in the house opposite," I hastened to
+explain, disjointedly I am afraid.  "And we have escaped.  We
+cannot get back if we would.  Unless you let us enter your room
+and give us shelter--"
+
+"We shall be dashed to pieces on the pavement," supplied Marie,
+with perfect calmness--nay, with apparent enjoyment.
+
+"Let you in here?"  she answered, starting back in new terror;
+"it is impossible."
+
+She reminded me of our cousin, being, like her pale and dark-
+haired.  She wore her hair in a coronet, disordered now.  But
+though she was still beautiful, she was older than Kit, and
+lacked her pliant grace.  I saw all this, and judging her nature,
+I spoke out of my despair.  "Madame," I said piteously, "we are
+only boys.  Croisette!  Come up!"  Squeezing myself still more
+tightly into my corner of the ledge, I made room for him between
+us.  "See, Madame," I cried, craftily, "will you not have pity on
+three boys?"
+
+St. Crois's boyish face and fair hair arrested her attention, as
+I had expected.  Her expression grew softer, and she murmured,
+"Poor boy!"
+
+I caught at the opportunity.  "We do but seek a passage through
+your room," I said fervently.  Good heavens, what had we not at
+stake!  What if she should remain obdurate?  "We are in trouble
+--in despair," I panted.  "So, I believe, are you.  We will help
+you if you will first save us.  We are boys, but we can fight for
+you."
+
+"Whom am I to trust?"  she exclaimed, with a shudder.  "But
+heaven forbid," she continued, her eyes on Croisette's face,
+"that, wanting help, I should refuse to give it.  Come in, if you
+will."
+
+I poured out my thanks, and had forced my head between the bars
+--at imminent risk of its remaining there--before the words were
+well out of her mouth.  But to enter was no easy task after all.
+Croisette did, indeed, squeeze through at last, and then by force
+pulled first one and then the other of us after him.  But only
+necessity and that chasm behind could have nerved us, I think, to
+go through a process so painful.  When I stood, at length on the
+floor, I seemed to be one great abrasion from head to foot.  And
+before a lady, too!
+
+But what a joy I felt, nevertheless.  A fig for Bezers now.  He
+had called us boys; and we were boys.  But he should yet find
+that we could thwart him.  It could be scarcely half-an-hour
+after midnight; we might still be in time.  I stretched myself
+and trod the level door jubilantly, and then noticed, while doing
+so, that our hostess had retreated to the door and was eyeing us
+timidly--half-scared.
+
+I advanced to her with my lowest bow--sadly missing my sword.
+"Madame," I said, "I am M. Anne de Caylus, and these are my
+brothers.  And we are at your service."
+
+"And I," she replied, smiling faintly--I do not know why--"am
+Madame de Pavannes, I gratefully accept your offers of service."
+
+"De Pavannes?"  I exclaimed, amazed and overjoyed.  Madame de
+Pavannes!  Why, she must be Louis' kinswoman!  No doubt she could
+tell us where he was lodged, and so rid our task of half its
+difficulty.  Could anything have fallen out more happily?  "You
+know then M. Louis de Pavannes?"  I continued eagerly.
+
+"Certainly," she answered, smiling with a rare shy sweetness this
+time.  "Very well indeed.  He is my husband."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A PRIEST AND A WOMAN.
+
+"He is my husband!"
+
+The statement was made in the purest innocence; yet never, as may
+well be imagined, did words fall with more stunning force.  Not
+one of us answered or, I believe, moved so much as a limb or an
+eyelid.  We only stared, wanting time to take in the astonishing
+meaning of the words, and then more time to think what they meant
+to us in particular.
+
+Louis de Pavannes' wife!  Louis de Pavannes married!  If the
+statement were true--and we could not doubt, looking in her face,
+that at least she thought she was telling the truth--it meant
+that we had been fooled indeed!  That we had had this journey for
+nothing, and run this risk for a villain.  It meant that the
+Louis de Pavannes who had won our boyish admiration was the
+meanest, the vilest of court-gallants.  That Mademoiselle de
+Caylus had been his sport and plaything.  And that we in trying
+to be beforehand with Bezers had been striving to save a
+scoundrel from his due.  It meant all that, as soon as we grasped
+it in the least.
+
+"Madame," said Croisette gravely, after a pause so prolonged that
+her smile faded pitifully from her face, scared by our strange
+looks.  "Your husband has been some time away from you?  He only
+returned, I think, a week or two ago?"
+
+"That is so," she answered, naively, and our last hope vanished.
+"But what of that?  He was back with me again, and only
+yesterday--only yesterday!"  she continued, clasping her hands,
+"we were so happy."
+
+"And now, madame?"
+
+She looked at me, not comprehending.
+
+"I mean," I hastened to explain, "we do not understand how you
+come to be here.  And a prisoner."  I was really thinking that
+her story might throw some light upon ours.
+
+"I do not know, myself," she said.  "Yesterday, in the afternoon,
+I paid a visit to the Abbess of the Ursulines."
+
+"Pardon me," Croisette interposed quickly, "but are you not of
+the new faith?  A Huguenot?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she answered eagerly.  "But the Abbess is a very dear
+friend of mine, and no bigot.  Oh, nothing of that kind, I assure
+you.  When I am in Paris I visit her once a week.  Yesterday,
+when I left her, she begged me to call here and deliver a
+message."
+
+"Then," I said, "you know this house?"
+
+"Very well, indeed," she replied.  "It is the sign of the 'Hand
+and Glove,' one door out of the Rue Platriere.  I have been in
+Master Mirepoix's shop more than once before.  I came here
+yesterday to deliver the message, leaving my maid in the street,
+and I was asked to come up stairs, and still up until I reached
+this room.  Asked to wait a moment, I began to think it strange
+that I should be brought to so wretched a place, when I had
+merely a message for Mirepoix's ear about some gauntlets.  I
+tried the door; I found it locked.  Then I was terrified, and
+made a noise."
+
+We all nodded.  We were busy building up theories--or it might be
+one and the same theory--to explain this.  "Yes," I said,
+eagerly.
+
+"Mirepoix came to me then.  'What does this mean?' I demanded.
+He looked ashamed of himself, but he barred my way.  'Only this,'
+he said at last, 'that your ladyship must remain here a few
+hours--two days at most.  No harm whatever is intended to you.
+My wife will wait upon you, and when you leave us, all shall be
+explained.' He would say no more, and it was in vain I asked him
+if he did not take me for some one else; if he thought I was mad.
+To all he answered, No.  And when I dared him to detain me he
+threatened force.  Then I succumbed.  I have been here since,
+suspecting I know not what, but fearing everything."
+
+"That is ended, madame," I answered, my hand on my breast, my
+soul in arms for her.  Here, unless I was mistaken, was one more
+unhappy and more deeply wronged even than Kit; one too who owed
+her misery to the same villain.  "Were there nine glovers on the
+stairs," I declared roundly, "we would take you out and take you
+home!  Where are your husband's apartments?"
+
+"In the Rue de Saint Merri, close to the church.  We have a house
+there."
+
+"M. de Pavannes," I suggested cunningly, "is doubtless distracted
+by your disappearance."
+
+"Oh, surely," she answered with earnest simplicity, while the
+tears sprang to her eyes.  Her innocence--she had not the germ of
+a suspicion--made me grind my teeth with wrath.  Oh, the base
+wretch!  The miserable rascal!  What did the women see, I
+wondered--what had we all seen in this man, this Pavannes, that
+won for him our hearts, when he had only a stone to give in
+return?
+
+I drew Croisette and Marie aside, apparently to consider how we
+might force the door.  "What is the meaning of this?"  I said
+softly, glancing at the unfortunate lady.  "What do you think,
+Croisette?"
+
+I knew well what the answer would be.
+
+"Think!"  he cried with fiery impatience.  "What can any one
+think except that that villain Pavannes has himself planned his
+wife's abduction?  Of course it is so!  His wife out of the way
+he is free to follow up his intrigues at Caylus.  He may then
+marry Kit or--Curse him!"
+
+"No," I said sternly, "cursing is no good.  We must do something
+more.  And yet--we have promised Kit, you see, that we would save
+him--we must keep our word.  We must save him from Bezers at
+least."
+
+Marie groaned.
+
+But Croisette took up the thought with ardour.  "From Bezers?"
+he cried, his face aglow.  "Ay, true!  So we must!  But then we
+will draw lots, who shall fight him and kill him."
+
+I extinguished him by a look.  "We shall fight him in turn," I
+said, "until one of us kill him.  There you are right.  But your
+turn comes last.  Lots indeed!  We have no need of lots to learn
+which is the eldest."
+
+I was turning from him--having very properly crushed him--to look
+for something which we could use to force the door, when he held
+up his hand to arrest my attention.  We listened, looking at one
+another.  Through the window came unmistakeable sounds of voices.
+"They have discovered our flight," I said, my heart sinking.
+
+Luckily we had had the forethought to draw the curtain across the
+casement.  Bezers' people could therefore, from their window, see
+no more than ours, dimly lighted and indistinct.  Yet they would
+no doubt guess the way we had escaped, and hasten to cut off our
+retreat below.  For a moment I looked at the door of our room,
+half-minded to attack it, and fight our way out, taking the
+chance of reaching the street before Bezers' folk should have
+recovered from their surprise and gone down.  But then I looked
+at Madame.  How could we ensure her safety in the struggle?
+While I hesitated the choice was taken from us.  We heard voices
+in the house below, and heavy feet on the stairs.
+
+We were between two fires.  I glanced irresolutely round the bare
+garret, with its sloping roof, searching for a better weapon.  I
+had only my dagger.  But in vain.  I saw nothing that would
+serve.  "What will you do?"  Madame de Pavannes murmured,
+standing pale and trembling by the hearth, and looking from one
+to another.  Croisette plucked my sleeve before I could answer,
+and pointed to the box-bed with its scanty curtains.  "If they
+see us in the room," he urged softly, "while they are half in and
+half out, they will give the alarm.  Let us hide ourselves
+yonder. When they are inside--you understand?"
+
+He laid his hand on his dagger.  The muscles of the lad's face
+grew tense.  I did understand him.  "Madame," I said quickly,
+"you will not betray us?"
+
+She shook her head.  The colour returned to her cheek, and the
+brightness to her eyes.  She was a true woman.  The sense that
+she was protecting others deprived her of fear for herself.
+
+The footsteps were on the topmost stair now, and a key was thrust
+with a rasping sound into the lock.  But before it could be
+turned--it fortunately fitted ill--we three had jumped on the bed
+and were crouching in a row at the head of it, where the curtains
+of the alcove concealed, and only just concealed us, from any one
+standing at the end of the room near the door.
+
+I was the outermost, and through a chink could see what passed.
+One, two, three people came in, and the door was closed behind
+them.  Three people, and one of them a woman!  My heart--which
+had been in my mouth--returned to its place, for the Vidame was
+not one.  I breathed freely; only I dared not communicate my
+relief to the others, lest my voice should be heard.  The first
+to come in was the woman closely cloaked and hooded.  Madame de
+Pavannes cast on her a single doubtful glance, and then to my
+astonishment threw herself into her arms, mingling her sobs with
+little joyous cries of "Oh, Diane!  oh, Diane!"
+
+"My poor little one!"  the newcomer exclaimed, soothing her with
+tender touches on hair and shoulder.  "You are safe now.  Quite
+safe!"
+
+"You have come to take me away?"
+
+"Of course we have!"  Diane answered cheerfully, still caressing
+her.  "We have come to take you to your husband.  He has been
+searching for you everywhere.  He is distracted with grief,
+little one."
+
+"Poor Louis!"  ejaculated the wife.
+
+"Poor Louis, indeed!"  the rescuer answered.  "But you will see
+him soon.  We only learned at midnight where you were.  You have
+to thank M. le Coadjuteur here for that.  He brought me the news,
+and at once escorted me here to fetch you."
+
+"And to restore one sister to another," said the priest silkily,
+as he advanced a step.  He was the very same priest whom I had
+seen two hours before with Bezers, and had so greatly disliked!
+I hated his pale face as much now as I had then.  Even the errand
+of good on which he had come could not blind me to his thin-
+lipped mouth, to his mock humility and crafty eyes.  "I have had
+no task so pleasant for many days," added he, with every
+appearance of a desire to propitiate.
+
+But, seemingly, Madame de Pavannes had something of the same
+feeling towards him which I had myself; for she started at the
+sound of his voice, and disengaging herself from her sister's
+arms--it seemed it was her sister--shrank back from the pair.
+She bowed indeed in acknowledgment of his words.  But there was
+little gratitude in the movement, and less warmth.  I saw the
+sister's face--a brilliantly beautiful face it was--brighter eyes
+and lips and more lovely auburn hair I have never seen--even Kit
+would have been plain and dowdy beside her--I saw it harden
+strangely.  A moment before, the two had been in one another's
+arms.  Now they stood apart, somehow chilled and disillusionised.
+The shadow of the priest had fallen upon them--had come between
+them.
+
+At this crisis the fourth person present asserted himself.
+Hitherto he had stood silent just within the door:  a plain man,
+plainly dressed, somewhat over sixty and grey-haired.  He looked
+disconcerted and embarrassed, and I took him for Mirepoix--
+rightly as it turned out.
+
+"I am sure," he now exclaimed, his voice trembling with anxiety,
+or it might be with fear, "your ladyship will regret leaving
+here!  You will indeed!  No harm would have happened to you.
+Madame d'O does not know what she is doing, or she would not take
+you away.  She does not know what she is doing!"  he repeated
+earnestly.
+
+"Madame d'O!"  cried the beautiful Diane, her brown eyes darting
+fire at the unlucky culprit, her voice full of angry disdain.
+"How dare you--such as you--mention my name?  Wretch!"
+
+She flung the last word at him, and the priest took it up.  "Ay,
+wretch!  Wretched man indeed!"  he repeated slowly, stretching
+out his long thin hand and laying it like the claw of some bird
+of prey on the tradesman's shoulder, which flinched, I saw, under
+the touch.  "How dare you--such as you--meddle with matters of
+the nobility?  Matters that do not concern you?  Trouble!  I see
+trouble hanging over this house, Mirepoix!  Much trouble!"
+
+The miserable fellow trembled visibly under the covert threat.
+His face grew pale.  His lips quivered.  He seemed fascinated by
+the priest's gaze.  "I am a faithful son of the church," he
+muttered; but his voice shook so that the words were scarcely
+audible.  "I am known to be such!  None better known in Paris, M.
+le Coadjuteur."
+
+"Men are known by their works!"  the priest retorted.  "Now,
+now," he continued, abruptly raising his voice, and lifting his
+hand in a kind of exaltation, real or feigned, "is the appointed
+time! And now is the day of salvation!  and woe, Mirepoix, woe!
+woe!  to the backslider, and to him that putteth his hand to the
+plough and looketh back to-night!"
+
+The layman cowered and shrank before his fierce denunciation;
+while Madame de Pavannes gazed from one to the other as if her
+dislike for the priest were so great that seeing the two thus
+quarrelling, she almost forgave Mirepoix his offence.  "Mirepoix
+said he could explain," she murmured irresolutely.
+
+The Coadjutor fixed his baleful eyes on him.  "Mirepoix," he said
+grimly, "can explain nothing!  Nothing!  I dare him to explain!"
+
+And certainly Mirepoix thus challenged was silent.  "Come," the
+priest continued peremptorily, turning to the lady who had
+entered with him, "your sister must leave with us at once.  We
+have no time to lose."
+
+"But what what does it mean!"  Madame de Pavannes said, as though
+she hesitated even now.  "Is there danger still?"
+
+"Danger!"  the priest exclaimed, his form seeming to swell, and
+the exaltation I had before read in his voice and manner again
+asserting itself.  "I put myself at your service, Madame, and
+danger disappears!  I am as God to-night with powers of life and
+death!  You do not understand me?  Presently you shall.  But you
+are ready.  We will go then.  Out of the way, fellow!"  he
+thundered, advancing upon the door.
+
+But Mirepoix, who had placed himself with his back to it, to my
+astonishment did not give way.  His full bourgeois face was pale;
+yet peeping through my chink, I read in it a desperate
+resolution.  And oddly--very oddly, because I knew that, in
+keeping Madame de Pavannes a prisoner, he must be in the wrong--I
+sympathised with him.  Low-bred trader, tool of Pavannes though
+he was, I sympathised with him, when he said firmly:
+
+"She shall not go!"
+
+"I say she shall!"  the priest shrieked, losing all control over
+himself.  "Fool!  Madman!  You know not what you do!"  As the
+words passed his lips, he made an adroit forward movement,
+surprised the other, clutched him by the arms, and with a
+strength I should never have thought lay in his meagre frame,
+flung him some paces into the room.  "Fool!"  he hissed, shaking
+his crooked fingers at him in malignant triumph.  "There is no
+man in Paris, do you hear--or woman either--shall thwart me to-
+night!"
+
+"Is that so?  Indeed?"
+
+The words, and the cold, cynical voice, were not those of
+Mirepoix; they came from behind.  The priest wheeled round, as if
+he had been stabbed in the back.  I clutched Croisette, and
+arrested the cramped limb I was moving under cover of the noise.
+The speaker was Bezers!  He stood in the open door-way, his great
+form filling it from post to post, the old gibing smile on his
+face.  We had been so taken up, actors and audience alike, with
+the altercation, that no one had heard him ascend the stairs.  He
+still wore the black and silver suit, but it was half hidden now
+under a dark riding cloak which just disclosed the glitter of his
+weapons.  He was booted and spurred and gloved as for a journey.
+
+"Is that so?"  he repeated mockingly, as his gaze rested in turn
+on each of the four, and then travelled sharply round the room.
+"So you will not be thwarted by any man in Paris, to-night, eh?
+Have you considered, my dear Coadjutor, what a large number of
+people there are in Paris?  It would amuse me very greatly now--
+and I'm sure it would the ladies too, who must pardon my abrupt
+entrance--to see you put to the test; pitted against--shall we
+say the Duke of Anjou?  Or M. de Guise, our great man?  Or the
+Admiral?  Say the Admiral foot to foot?"
+
+Rage and fear--rage at the intrusion, fear of the intruder--
+struggled in the priest's face.  "How do you come here, and what
+do you want?"  he inquired hoarsely.  If looks and tones could
+kill, we three, trembling behind our flimsy screen, had been
+freed at that moment from our enemy.
+
+"I have come in search of the young birds whose necks you were
+for stretching, my friend!"  was Bezers' answer.  "They have
+vanished.  Birds they must be, for unless they have come into
+this house by that window, they have flown away with wings."
+
+"They have not passed this way," the priest declared stoutly,
+eager only to get rid of the other and I blessed him for the
+words!  "I have been here since I left you."
+
+But the Vidame was not one to accept any man's statement.  "Thank
+you; I think I will see for myself," he answered coolly.
+"Madame," he continued, speaking to Madame de Pavannes as he
+passed her, "permit me."
+
+He did not look at her, or see her emotion, or I think he must
+have divined our presence.  And happily the others did not
+suspect her of knowing more than they did.  He crossed the floor
+at his leisure, and sauntered to the window, watched by them with
+impatience.  He drew aside the curtain, and tried each of the
+bars, and peered through the opening both up and down, An oath
+and an expression of wonder escaped him.  The bars were standing,
+and firm and strong; and it did not occur to him that we could
+have passed between them.  I am afraid to say how few inches they
+were apart.
+
+As he turned, he cast a casual glance at the bed--at us; and
+hesitated.  He had the candle in his hand, having taken it to the
+window the better to examine the bars; and it obscured his sight.
+He did not see us.  The three crouching forms, the strained white
+faces, the starting eyes, that lurked in the shadow of the
+curtain escaped him.  The wild beating of our hearts did not
+reach his ears.  And it was well for him that it was so.  If he
+had come up to the bed I think that we should have killed him, I
+know that we should have tried.  All the blood in me had gone to
+my head, and I saw him through a haze--larger than life.  The
+exact spot near the buckle of his cloak where I would strike him,
+downwards and inwards, an inch above the collar-bone,--this only
+I saw clearly.  I could not have missed it.  But he turned away,
+his face darkening, and went back to the group near the door, and
+never knew the risk he had run.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MADAME'S FRIGHT.
+
+And we breathed again.  The agony of suspense, which Bezers'
+pause had created, passed away.  But the night already seemed to
+us as a week of nights.  An age of experience, an aeon of
+adventures cut us off--as we lay shaking behind the curtain--from
+Caylus and its life.  Paris had proved itself more treacherous
+than we had even expected to find it.  Everything and everyone
+shifted, and wore one face one minute, and one another.  We had
+come to save Pavannes' life at the risk of our own; we found him
+to be a villain!  Here was Mirepoix owning himself a treacherous
+wretch, a conspirator against a woman; we sympathised with him.
+The priest had come upon a work of charity and rescue; we loathed
+the sound of his voice, and shrank from him, we knew not why,
+seeming only to read a dark secret, a gloomy threat in each
+doubtful word he uttered.  He was the strangest enigma of all.
+Why did we fear him?  Why did Madame de Pavannes, who apparently
+had known him before, shudder at the touch of his hand?  Why did
+his shadow come even between her and her sister, and estrange
+them?  so that from the moment Pavannes' wife saw him standing by
+Diane's side, she forgot that the latter had come to save, and
+looked on her in doubt and sorrow, almost with repugnance.
+
+We left the Vidame going back to the fireplace.  He stooped to
+set down the candle by the hearth.  "They are not here," he said,
+as he straightened himself again, and looked curiously at his
+companions.  He had apparently been too much taken up with the
+pursuit to notice them before.  "That is certain, so I have the
+less time to lose," he continued.  "But I would--yes, my dear
+Coadjutor, I certainly would like to know before I go, what you
+are doing here.  Mirepoix--Mirepoix is an honest man.  I did not
+expect to find you in HIS house.  And two ladies?  Two!  Fie,
+Coadjutor.  Ha!  Madame d'O, is it?  My dear lady," he continued,
+addressing her in a whimsical tone, "do not start at the sound of
+your own name!  It would take a hundred hoods to hide your eyes,
+or bleach your lips to the common colour; I should have known you
+at once, had I looked at you.  And your companion?  Pheugh!"
+
+He broke off, whistling softly.  It was clear that he recognised
+Madame de Pavannes, and recognised her with astonishment.  The
+bed creaked as I craned my neck to see what would follow.  Even
+the priest seemed to think that some explanation was necessary,
+for he did not wait to be questioned.
+
+"Madame de Pavannes," he said in a dry, husky voice, and without
+looking up, "was spirited hither yesterday; and detained against
+her will by this good man, who will have to answer for it.
+Madame d'O discovered her whereabouts, and asked me to escort her
+here without loss of time to enforce her sister's release."
+
+"And her restoration to her distracted husband?"
+
+"Just so," the priest assented, acquiring confidence, I thought.
+
+"And Madame desires to go?"
+
+"Surely!  Why not?"
+
+"Well," the Vidame drawled, his manner such as to bring the blood
+to Madame de Pavannes' cheek, "it depends on the person who--to
+use your phrase, M. le Coadjuteur--spirited her hither."
+
+"And that," Madame herself retorted, raising her head, while her
+voice quivered with indignation and anger, "was the Abbess of the
+Ursulines.  Your suspicions are base, worthy of you and unworthy
+of me, M. le Vidame!  Diane!"  she continued sharply, taking her
+sister's arm, and casting a disdainful glance at Bezers, "let us
+go.  I want to be with my husband.  I am stifled in this room."
+
+"We are going, little one," Diane murmured reassuringly.  But I
+noticed that the speaker's animation, which had been as a soul to
+her beauty when she entered the room, was gone.  A strange
+stillness was it fear of the Vidame?  had taken its place.
+
+"The Abbess of the Ursulines?"  Bezers continued thoughtfully.
+"SHE brought you here, did she?"  There was surprise, genuine
+surprise, in his voice.  "A good soul, and, I think I have heard,
+a friend of yours.  Umph!"
+
+"A very dear friend," Madame answered stiffly.  "Now, Diane!"
+
+"A dear friend!  And she spirited you hither yesterday!"
+commented the Vidame, with the air of one solving an anagram.
+"And Mirepoix detained you; respectable Mirepoix, who is said to
+have a well-filled stocking under his pallet, and stands well
+with the bourgeoisie.  He is in the plot.  Then at a very late
+hour, your affectionate sister, and my good friend the Coadjutor,
+enter to save you.  From what?"
+
+No one spoke.  The priest looked down, his cheeks livid with
+anger.
+
+"From what?"  Bezers continued with grim playfulness.  "There is
+the mystery.  From the clutches of this profligate Mirepoix, I
+suppose.  From the dangerous Mirepoix.  Upon my honour," with a
+sudden ring of resolution in his tone, "I think you are safer
+here; I think you had better stay where you are, Madame, until
+morning!  And risk Mirepoix!"
+
+"Oh, no!  no!"  Madame cried vehemently.
+
+"Oh, yes!  yes!"  he replied.  "What do you say, Coadjutor?  Do
+you not think so?"
+
+The priest looked down sullenly.  His voice shook as he murmured
+in answer, "Madame will please herself.  She has a character, M.
+le Vidame.  But if she prefer to stay here--well!"
+
+"Oh, she has a character, has she?"  rejoined the giant, his eyes
+twinkling with evil mirth, "and she should go home with you, and
+my old friend Madame d'O, to save it!  That is it, is it?  No,
+no," he continued when he had had his silent laugh out, "Madame
+de Pavannes will do very well here--very well here until morning.
+We have work to do.  Come.  Let us go and do it."
+
+"Do you mean it?"  said the priest, starting and looking up with
+a subtle challenge--almost a threat--in his tone.
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+Their eyes met: and seeing their looks, I chuckled, nudging
+Croisette.  No fear of their discovering us now.  I recalled the
+old proverb which says that when thieves fall out, honest men
+come by their own, and speculated on the chance of the priest
+freeing us once for all from M. de Bezers.
+
+But the two were ill-matched.  The Vidame could have taken up the
+other with one hand and dashed his head on the floor.  And it did
+not end there.  I doubt if in craft the priest was his equal.
+Behind a frank brutality Bezers--unless his reputation belied
+him--concealed an Italian intellect.  Under a cynical
+recklessness he veiled a rare cunning and a constant suspicion;
+enjoying in that respect a combination of apparently opposite
+qualities, which I have known no other man to possess in an equal
+degree, unless it might be his late majesty, Henry the Great.  A
+child would have suspected the priest; a veteran might have been
+taken in by the Vidame.
+
+And indeed the priest's eyes presently sank.  "Our bargain is to
+go for nothing?"  he muttered sullenly.
+
+"I know of no bargain," quoth the Vidame.  "And I have no time to
+lose, splitting hairs here.  Set it down to what you like.  Say
+it is a whim of mine, a fad, a caprice.  Only understand that
+Madame de Pavannes stays.  We go.  And--" he added this, as a
+sudden thought seemed to strike him, "though I would not
+willingly use compulsion to a lady, I think Madame d'O had better
+come too."
+
+"You speak masterfully," the priest said with a sneer, forgetting
+the tone he had himself used a few minutes before to Mirepoix.
+
+"Just so.  I have forty horsemen over the way," was the dry
+answer.  "For the moment, I am master of the legions, Coadjutor."
+
+"That is true," Madame d'O said; so softly that I started.  She
+had scarcely spoken since Bezers' entrance.  As she spoke now,
+she shook back the hood from her face and disclosed the chestnut
+hair clinging about her temples--deep blots of colour on the
+abnormal whiteness of her skin, "That is true, M. de Bezers," she
+said.  "You have the legions.  You have the power.  But you will
+not use it, I think, against an old friend.  You will not do us
+this hurt when I--But listen."
+
+He would not.  In the very middle of her appeal he cut her short
+--brute that he was!  "No Madame!"  he burst out violently,
+disregarding the beautiful face, the supplicating glance, that
+might have moved a stone, "that is just what I will not do.  I
+will not listen!  We know one another.  Is not that enough?"
+
+She looked at him fixedly.  He returned her gaze, not smiling
+now, but eyeing her with a curious watchfulness.
+
+And after a long pause she turned from him.  "Very well," she
+said softly, and drew a deep, quivering breath, the sound of
+which reached us.  "Then let us go."  And without--strangest
+thing of all--bestowing a word or look on her sister, who was
+weeping bitterly in a chair, she turned to the door and led the
+way out, a shrug of her shoulders the last thing I marked.
+
+The poor lady heard her departing step however,
+and sprang up.  It dawned upon her that she was being deserted.
+"Diane!  Diane!"  she cried distractedly--and I had to put my
+hand on Croisette to keep him quiet, there was such fear and pain
+in her tone--"I will go!  I will not be left behind in this
+dreadful place!  Do you hear?  Come back to me, Diane!"
+
+It made my blood run wildly.  But Diane did not come back.
+Strange!  And Bezers too was unmoved.  He stood between the poor
+woman and the door, and by a gesture bid Mirepoix and the priest
+pass out before him.  "Madame," he said--and his voice, stern and
+hard as ever, expressed no jot of compassion for her, rather such
+an impatient contempt as a puling child might elicit--"you are
+safe here.  And here you will stop!  Weep if you please," he
+added cynically, "you will have fewer tears to shed to-morrow."
+
+His last words--they certainly were odd ones--arrested her
+attention.  She checked her sobs, being frightened I think, and
+looked up at him.  Perhaps he had spoken with this in view, for
+while she still stood at gaze, her hands pressed to her bosom, he
+slipped quickly out and closed the door behind him.  I heard a
+muttering for an instant outside, and then the tramp of feet
+descending the stairs.  They were gone, and we were still
+undiscovered.
+
+For Madame, she had clean forgotten our presence--of that I am
+sure--and the chance of escape we might afford.  On finding
+herself alone she gazed a short time in alarmed silence at the
+door, and then ran to the window and peered out, still trembling,
+terrified, silent.  So she remained a while.
+
+She had not noticed that Bezers on going out had omitted to lock
+the door behind him.  I had.  But I was unwilling to move
+hastily.  Some one might return to see to it before the Vidame
+left the house.  And besides the door was not over strong, and if
+locked would be no obstacle to the three of us when we had only
+Mirepoix to deal with.  So I kept the others where they were by a
+nudge and a pinch, and held my breath a moment, straining my ears
+to catch the closing of the door below.  I did not hear that.
+But I did catch a sound that otherwise might have escaped me, but
+which now riveted my eyes to the door of our room.  Some one in
+the silence, which followed the trampling on the stairs, had
+cautiously laid a hand on the latch.
+
+The light in the room was dim.  Mirepoix had taken one of the
+candles with him, and the other wanted snuffing.  I could not see
+whether the latch moved; whether or no it was rising.  But
+watching intently, I made out that the door was being opened--
+slowly, noiselessly.  I saw someone enter--a furtive gliding
+shadow.
+
+For a moment I felt nervous--then I recognised the dark hooded
+figure.  It was only Madame d'O.  Brave woman!  She had evaded
+the Vidame and slipped back to the rescue.  Ha, ha!  We would
+defeat the Vidame yet!  Things were going better!
+
+But then something in her manner--as she stood holding the door
+and peering into the room--something in her bearing startled and
+frightened me.  As she came forward her movements were so
+stealthy that her footsteps made no sound.  Her dark shadow,
+moving ahead of her across the floor, was not more silent than
+she.  An undefined desire to make a noise, to give the alarm,
+seized me.
+
+Half-way across the room she stopped to listen, and looked round,
+startled herself, I think, by the silence.  She could not see her
+sister, whose figure was blurred by the outlines of the curtain;
+and no doubt she was puzzled to think what had become of her.
+The suspense which I felt, but did not understand, was so great
+that at last I moved, and the bed creaked.
+
+In a moment her face was turned our way, and she glided forwards,
+her features still hidden by the hood of her cloak.  She was
+close to us now, bending over us.  She raised her hand to her
+head--to shade her eyes, as she looked more closely, I supposed,
+and I was wondering whether she saw us--whether she took the
+shapelessness in the shadow of the curtain for her sister, or
+could not make it out--I was thinking how we could best apprise
+her of our presence without alarming her--when Croisette dashed
+my thoughts to the winds!  Croisette, with a tremendous whoop and
+a crash, bounded over me on to the floor!
+
+She uttered a gasping cry--a cry of intense, awful fear.  I have
+the sound in my ears even now.  With that she staggered back,
+clutching the air.  I heard the metallic clang and ring of
+something falling on the floor.  I heard an answering cry of
+alarm from the window; and then Madame de Pavannes ran forward
+and caught her in her arms.
+
+It was strange to find the room lately so silent become at once
+alive with whispering forms, as we came hastily to light.  I
+cursed Croisette for his folly, and was immeasurably angry with
+him, but I had no time to waste words on him then.  I hurried to
+the door to guard it.  I opened it a hand's breadth and listened.
+All was quiet below; the house still.  I took the key out of the
+lock and put it in my pocket and went back.  Marie and Croisette
+were standing a little apart from Madame de Pavannes, who,
+hanging over her sister, was by turns bathing her face and
+explaining our presence.
+
+In a very few minutes Madame d'O seemed to recover, and sat up.
+The first shock of deadly terror had passed, but she was still
+pale.  She still trembled, and shrank from meeting our eyes,
+though I saw her, when our attention was apparently directed
+elsewhere, glance at one and another of us with a strange
+intentness, a shuddering curiosity.  No wonder, I thought.  She
+must have had a terrible fright--one that might have killed a
+more timid woman!
+
+"What on earth did you do that for!"  I asked Croisette
+presently, my anger certainly not decreasing the more I looked at
+her beautiful face.  "You might have killed her!"
+
+In charity I supposed his nerves had failed him, for he could not
+even now give me a straightforward answer.  His only reply was,
+"Let us get away!  Let us get away from this horrible house!"
+and this he kept repeating with a shudder as he moved restlessly
+to and fro.
+
+"With all my heart!"  I answered, looking at him with some
+contempt.  "That is exactly what we are going to do!"
+
+But all the same his words reminded me of something which in the
+excitement of the scene I had momentarily forgotten, and that was
+our duty.  Pavannes must still be saved, though not for Kit;
+rather to answer to us for his sins.  But he must be saved!  And
+now that the road was open, every minute lost was reproach to us.
+"Yes," I added roughly, my thoughts turned into a more rugged
+channel, "you are right.  This is no time for nursing.  We must
+be going.  Madame de Pavannes," I went on, addressing myself to
+her, "you know the way home from here--to your house!"  "Oh,
+yes," she cried.
+
+"That is well," I answered.  "Then we will start.  Your sister is
+sufficiently recovered now, I think.  And we will not risk any
+further delay."
+
+I did not tell her of her husband's danger, or that we suspected
+him of wronging her, and being in fact the cause of her
+detention.  I wanted her services as a guide.  That was the main
+point, though I was glad to be able to put her in a place of
+safety at the same time that we fulfilled our own mission.
+
+She rose eagerly.  "You are sure that we can get out?"  she said.
+
+"Sure," I replied with a brevity worthy of Bezers himself.
+
+And I was right.  We trooped down stairs, making as little noise
+as possible; with the result that Mirepoix only took the alarm,
+and came upon us when we were at the outer door, bungling with
+the lock.  Then I made short work of him, checking his scared
+words of remonstrance by flashing my dagger before his eyes.  I
+induced him in the same fashion--he was fairly taken by surprise
+--to undo the fastenings himself; and so, bidding him follow us
+at his peril, we slipped out one by one.  We softly closed the
+door behind us.  And lo!  we were at last free--free and in the
+streets of Paris, with the cool night air fanning our brows.  A
+church hard by tolled the hour of two; and the strokes were
+echoed, before we had gone many steps along the ill-paved way, by
+the solemn tones of the bell of Notre Dame.
+
+We were free and in the streets, with a guide who knew the way.
+If Bezers had not gone straight from us to his vengeance, we
+might thwart him yet.  I strode along quickly, Madame d'O by my
+side the others a little way in front.  Here and there an oil-
+lamp, swinging from a pulley in the middle of the road, enabled
+us to avoid some obstacle more foul than usual, or to leap over a
+pool which had formed in the kennel.  Even in my excitement, my
+country-bred senses rebelled against the sights, and smells, the
+noisome air and oppressive closeness of the streets.
+
+The town was quiet, and very dark where the smoky lamps were not
+hanging.  Yet I wondered if it ever slept, for more than once we
+had to stand aside to give passage to a party of men, hurrying
+along with links and arms.  Several times too, especially towards
+the end of our walk, I was surprised by the flashing of bright
+lights in a courtyard, the door of which stood half open to right
+or left.  Once I saw the glow of torches reflected ruddily in the
+windows of a tall and splendid mansion, a little withdrawn from
+the street.  The source of the light was in the fore-court,
+hidden from us by a low wall, but I caught the murmur of voices
+and stir of many feet.  Once a gate was stealthily opened and two
+armed men looked out, the act and their manner of doing it,
+reminding me on the instant of those who had peeped out to
+inspect us some hours before in Bezers' house.  And once, nay
+twice, in the mouth of a narrow alley I discerned a knot of men
+standing motionless in the gloom.  There was an air of mystery
+abroad, a feeling as of solemn stir and preparation going on
+under cover of the darkness, which awed and unnerved me.
+
+But I said nothing of this, and Madame d'O was equally silent.
+Like most countrymen I was ready to believe in any exaggeration
+of the city's late hours, the more as she made no remark.  I
+supposed--shaking off the momentary impression--that what I saw
+was innocent and normal.  Besides, I was thinking what I should
+say to Pavannes when I saw him---in what terms I should warn him
+of his peril, and cast his perfidy in his teeth.  We had hurried
+along in this way--and in absolute silence, save when some
+obstacle or pitfall drew from us an exclamation--for about a
+quarter of a mile, when my companion, turning into a slightly
+wider street, slackened her speed, and indicated by a gesture
+that we had arrived.  A lamp hung over the porch, to which she
+pointed, and showed the small side gate half open.  We were close
+behind the other three now.  I saw Croisette stoop to enter and
+as quickly fall back a pace.  Why?
+
+In a moment it flashed across my mind that we were too late that
+the Vidame had been before us.
+
+And yet how quiet it all was.
+
+Then I breathed freely again.  I saw that Croisette had only
+stepped back to avoid some one who was coming out--the Coadjutor
+in fact.  The moment the entrance was clear, the lad shot in, and
+the others after him, the priest taking no notice of them, nor
+they of him.
+
+I was for going in too, when I felt Madame d'O's hand tighten
+suddenly on my arm, and then fall from it.  Apprised of something
+by this, I glanced at the priest's face, catching sight of it by
+chance just as his eyes met hers.  His face was white--nay it was
+ugly with disappointment and rage, bitter snarling rage, that was
+hardly human.  He grasped her by the arm roughly and twisted her
+round without ceremony, so as to draw her a few paces aside; yet
+not so far that I could not hear what they said.
+
+"He is not here!"  he hissed.  "Do you understand?  He crossed
+the river to the Faubourg St. Germain at nightfall--searching for
+her.  And he has not come back!  He is on the other side of the
+water, and midnight has struck this hour past!"
+
+She stood silent for a moment as if she had received a blow--
+silent and dismayed.  Something serious had happened.  I could
+see that.
+
+"He cannot recross the river now?"  she said after a time.  "The
+gates--"
+
+"Shut!"  he replied briefly.  "The keys are at the Louvre."
+
+"And the boats are on this side?"
+
+"Every boat!"  he answered, striking his one hand on the other
+with violence.  "Every boat!  No one may cross until it is over."
+
+"And the Faubourg St. Germain?"  she said in a lower voice.
+
+"There will be nothing done there.  Nothing!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A YOUNG KNIGHT-ERRANT.
+
+I would gladly have left the two together, and gone straight into
+the house.  I was eager now to discharge the errand on which I
+had come so far; and apart from this I had no liking for the
+priest or wish to overhear his talk.  His anger, however, was so
+patent, and the rudeness with which he treated Madame d'O so
+pronounced that I felt I could not leave her with him unless she
+should dismiss me.  So I stood patiently enough--and awkwardly
+enough too, I daresay--by the door while they talked on in
+subdued tones.  Nevertheless, I felt heartily glad when at
+length, the discussion ending Madame came back to me.  I offered
+her my arm to help her over the wooden foot of the side gate.
+She laid her hand on it, but she stood still.
+
+"M. de Caylus," she said; and at that stopped.  Naturally I
+looked at her, and our eyes met.  Hers brown and beautiful,
+shining in the light of the lamp overhead looked into mine.  Her
+lips were half parted, and one fair tress of hair had escaped
+from her hood.  "M. de Caylus, will you do me a favour," she
+resumed, softly, "a favour for which I shall always be grateful?"
+
+I sighed.  "Madame," I said earnestly, for I felt the solemnity
+of the occasion, "I swear that in ten minutes, if the task I now
+have in hand be finished I will devote my life to your service.
+For the present--"
+
+"Well, for the present?  But it is the present I want, Master
+Discretion."
+
+"I must see M. de Pavannes!  I am pledged to it," I ejaculated.
+
+"To see M. de Pavannes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I was conscious that she was looking at me with eyes of doubt,
+almost of suspicion.
+
+"Why?  Why?"  she asked with evident surprise.  "You have
+restored--and nearly frightened me to death in doing it--his wife
+to her home; what more do you want with him, most valiant knight-
+errant?"
+
+"I must see him," I said firmly.  I would have told her all and
+been thankful, but the priest was within hearing--or barely out
+of it; and I had seen too much pass between him and Bezers to be
+willing to say anything before him.
+
+"You must see M. de Pavannes?"  she repeated, gazing at me.
+
+"I must," I replied with decision.
+
+"Then you shall.  That is exactly what I am going to help you to
+do," she exclaimed.  "He is not here.  That is what is the
+matter.  He went out at nightfall seeking news of his wife, and
+crossed the river, the Coadjutor says, to the Faubourg St.
+Germain.  Now it is of the utmost importance that he should
+return before morning--return here."
+
+"But is he not here?"  I said, finding all my calculations at
+fault.  "You are sure of it, Madame?"
+
+"Quite sure," she answered rapidly.  "Your brothers will have by
+this time discovered the fact.  Now, M. de Caylus, Pavannes must
+be brought here before morning, not only for his wife's sake--
+though she will be wild with anxiety--but also--"
+
+"I know," I said, eagerly interrupting her, "for his own too!
+There is a danger threatening him."
+
+She turned swiftly, as if startled, and I turned, and we looked
+at the priest.  I thought we understood one another.  "There is,"
+she answered softly, "and I would save him from that danger; but
+he will only be safe, as I happen to know, here!  Here, you
+understand!  He must be brought here before daybreak, M. de
+Caylus.  He must!  He must!"  she exclaimed, her beautiful
+features hardening with the earnestness of her feelings.  "And
+the Coadjutor cannot go.  I cannot go.  There is only one man who
+can save him, and that is yourself.  There is, above all, not a
+moment to be lost."
+
+My thoughts were in a whirl.  Even as she spoke she began to walk
+back the way we had come, her hand on my arm; and I, doubtful,
+and in a confused way unwilling, went with her.  I did not
+clearly understand the position.  I would have wished to go in
+and confer with Marie and Croisette; but the juncture had
+occurred so quickly, and it might be that time was as valuable as
+she said, and--well, it was hard for me, a lad, to refuse her
+anything when she looked at me with appeal in her eyes.  I did
+manage to stammer, "But I do not know Paris.  I could not find
+my way, I am afraid, and it is night, Madame."
+
+She released my arm and stopped.  "Night!"  she cried, with a
+scornful ring in her voice.  "Night!  I thought you were a man,
+not a boy!  You are afraid!"
+
+"Afraid," I said hotly; "we Cayluses are never afraid."
+
+"Then I can tell you the way, if that be your only difficulty.
+We turn here.  Now, come in with me a moment," she continued,
+"and I will give you something you will need--and your
+directions."
+
+She had stopped at the door of a tall, narrow house, standing
+between larger ones in a street which appeared to me to be more
+airy and important than any I had yet seen.  As she spoke, she
+rang the bell once, twice, thrice.  The silvery tinkle had
+scarcely died away the third time before the door opened
+silently; I saw no one, but she drew me into a narrow hall or
+passage.  A taper in an embossed holder was burning on a chest.
+She took it up, and telling me to follow her led the way lightly
+up the stairs, and into a room, half-parlour, half-bedroom--such
+a room as I had never seen before.  It was richly hung from
+ceiling to floor with blue silk, and lighted by the soft rays of
+lamps shaded by Venetian globes of delicate hues.  The scent of
+cedar wood was in the air, and on the hearth in a velvet tray
+were some tiny puppies.  A dainty disorder reigned everywhere.
+On one table a jewel-case stood open, on another lay some lace
+garments, two or three masks and a fan.  A gemmed riding-whip and
+a silver-hilted poniard hung on the same peg.  And, strangest of
+all, huddled away behind the door, I espied a plain, black-
+sheathed sword, and a man's gauntlets.
+
+She did not wait a moment, but went at once to the jewel-case.
+She took from it a gold ring--a heavy seal ring.  She held this
+out to me in the most matter-of-fact way--scarcely turning, in
+fact.  "Put it on your finger," she said hurriedly.  "If you are
+stopped by soldiers, or if they will not give you a boat to cross
+the river, say boldly that you are on the king's service.  Call
+for the officer and show that ring.  Play the man.  Bid him stop
+you at his peril!"
+
+I hastily muttered my thanks, and she as hastily took something
+from a drawer, and tore it into strips.  Before I knew what she
+was doing she was on her knees by me, fastening a white band of
+linen round my left sleeve.  Then she took my cap, and with the
+same precipitation fixed a fragment of the stuff in it, in the
+form of a rough cross.
+
+"There," she said.  "Now, listen, M. de Caylus.  There is more
+afoot to-night than you know of.  Those badges will help you
+across to St. Germain, but the moment you land tear them off:
+Tear them off, remember.  They will help you no longer.  You will
+come back by the same boat, and will not need them.  If you are
+seen to wear them as you return, they will command no respect,
+but on the contrary will bring you--and perhaps me into trouble."
+
+"I understand," I said, "but--"
+
+"You must ask no questions," she retorted, waving one snowy
+finger before my eyes.  "My knight-errant must have faith in me,
+as I have in him; or he would not be here at this time of night,
+and alone with me.  But remember this also.  When you meet
+Pavannes do not say you come from me.  Keep that in your mind; I
+will explain the reason afterwards.  Say merely that his wife is
+found, and is wild with anxiety about him.  If you say anything
+as to his danger he may refuse to come.  Men are obstinate."
+
+I nodded a smiling assent, thinking I understood.  At the same
+time I permitted myself in my own mind a little discretion.
+Pavannes was not a fool, and the name of the Vidame--but,
+however, I should see.  I had more to say to him than she knew
+of.  Meanwhile she explained very carefully the three turnings I
+had to take to reach the river, and the wharf where boats most
+commonly lay, and the name of the house in which I should find M.
+de Pavannes.
+
+"He is at the Hotel de Bailli," she said.  "And there, I think
+that is all."
+
+"No, not all," I said hardily.  "There is one thing I have not
+got.  And that is a sword!"
+
+She followed the direction of my eyes, started, and laughed--a
+little oddly.  But she fetched the weapon.  "Take it, and do
+not," she urged, "do not lose time.  Do not mention me to
+Pavannes.  Do not let the white badges be seen as you return.
+That is really all.  And now good luck!"  She gave me her hand to
+kiss.  "Good luck, my knight-errant, good luck--and come back to
+me soon!"
+
+She smiled divinely, as it seemed to me, as she said these last
+words, and the same smile followed me down stairs:  for she
+leaned over the stair-head with one of the lamps in her hand, and
+directed me how to draw the bolts.  I took one backward glance as
+I did so at the fair stooping figure above me, the shining eyes,
+and tiny outstretched hand, and then darting into the gloom I
+hurried on my way.
+
+I was in a strange mood.  A few minutes before I had been at
+Pavannes' door, at the end of our journey; on the verge of
+success.  I had been within an ace, as I supposed at least, of
+executing my errand.  I had held the cup of success in my hand.
+And it had slipped.  Now the conflict had to be fought over
+again; the danger to be faced.  It would have been no more than
+natural if I had felt the disappointment keenly:  if I had almost
+despaired.
+
+But it was otherwise--far otherwise.  Never had my heart beat
+higher or more proudly than as I now hurried through the streets,
+avoiding such groups as were abroad in them, and intent only on
+observing the proper turnings.  Never in any moment of triumph in
+after days, in love or war, did anything like the exhilaration,
+the energy, the spirit, of those minutes come back to me.  I had
+a woman's badge in my cap--for the first time--the music of her
+voice in my ears.  I had a magic ring on my finger:  a talisman
+on my arm.  My sword was at my side again.  All round me lay a
+misty city of adventures, of danger and romance, full of the
+richest and most beautiful possibilities; a city of real
+witchery, such as I had read of in stories, through which those
+fairy gifts and my right hand should guide me safely.  I did not
+even regret my brothers, or our separation.  I was the eldest.
+It was fitting that the cream of the enterprise should be
+reserved for me, Anne de Caylus.  And to what might it not lead?
+In fancy I saw myself already a duke and peer of France--already
+I held the baton.
+
+Yet while I exulted boyishly, I did not forget what I was about.
+I kept my eyes open, and soon remarked that the number of people
+passing to and fro in the dark streets had much increased within
+the last half hour.  The silence in which in groups or singly
+these figures stole by me was very striking.  I heard no
+brawling, fighting or singing; yet if it were too late for these
+things, why were so many people up and about?  I began to count
+presently, and found that at least half of those I met wore
+badges in their hats and on their arms, similar to mine, and that
+they all moved with a businesslike air, as if bound for some
+rendezvous.
+
+I was not a fool, though I was young, and in some matters less
+quick than Croisette.  The hints which had been dropped by so
+many had not been lost on me.  "There is more afoot to-night than
+you know of!"  Madame d'O had said.  And having eyes as well as
+ears I fully believed it.  Something was afoot.  Something was
+going to happen in Paris before morning.  But what, I wondered.
+Could it be that a rebellion was about to break out?  If so I was
+on the king's service, and all was well.  I might even be going--
+and only eighteen--to make history!  Or was it only a brawl on a
+great scale between two parties of nobles?  I had heard of such
+things happening in Paris.  Then--well I did not see how I could
+act in that case.  I must be guided by events.
+
+I did not imagine anything else which it could be.  That is the
+truth, though it may need explanation.  I was accustomed only to
+the milder religious differences, the more evenly balanced
+parties of Quercy, where the peace between the Catholics and
+Huguenots had been welcome to all save a very few.  I could not
+gauge therefore the fanaticism of the Parisian populace, and lost
+count of the factor, which made possible that which was going to
+happen--was going to happen in Paris before daylight as surely as
+the sun was going to rise!  I knew that the Huguenot nobles were
+present in the city in great numbers, but it did not occur to me
+that they could as a body be in danger.  They were many and
+powerful, and as was said, in favour with the king.  They were
+under the protection of the King of Navarre--France's brother-
+in-law of a week, and the Prince of Conde; and though these
+princes were young, Coligny the sagacious admiral was old, and
+not much the worse I had learned for his wound.  He at least was
+high in royal favour, a trusted counsellor.  Had not the king
+visited him on his sick-bed and sat by him for an hour together?
+
+Surely, I thought, if there were danger, these men would know of
+it.  And then the Huguenots' main enemy, Henri le Balafre, the
+splendid Duke of Guise, "our great man," and "Lorraine," as the
+crowd called him--he, it was rumoured, was in disgrace at court.
+In a word these things, to say nothing of the peaceful and joyous
+occasion which had brought the Huguenots to Paris, and which
+seemed to put treachery out of the question, were more than
+enough to prevent me forecasting the event.
+
+If for a moment, indeed, as I hurried along towards the river,
+anything like the truth occurred to me, I put it from me.  I say
+with pride I put it from me as a thing impossible.  For God
+forbid--one may speak out the truth these forty years back--God
+forbid, say I, that all Frenchmen should bear the blood
+guiltiness which came of other than French brains, though French
+were the hands that did the work.
+
+I was not greatly troubled by my forebodings therefore:  and the
+state of exaltation to which Madame d'O's confidence had raised
+my spirits lasted until one of the narrow streets by the Louvre
+brought me suddenly within sight of the river.  Here faint
+moonlight bursting momentarily through the clouds was shining on
+the placid surface of the water.  The fresh air played upon, and
+cooled my temples.  And this with the quiet scene so abruptly
+presented to me, gave check to my thoughts, and somewhat sobered
+me.
+
+At some distance to my left I could distinguish in the middle of
+the river the pile of buildings which crowd the Ile de la Cite,
+and could follow the nearer arm of the stream as it swept
+landwards of these, closely hemmed in by houses, but unbroken as
+yet by the arches of the Pont Neuf which I have lived to see
+built.  Not far from me on my right--indeed within a stone's
+throw--the bulky mass of the Louvre rose dark and shapeless
+against the sky.  Only a narrow open space--the foreshore--
+separated me from the water; beyond which I could see an
+irregular line of buildings, that no doubt formed the Faubourg
+St. Germain.
+
+I had been told that I should find stairs leading down to the
+water, and boats moored at the foot of them, at this point.
+Accordingly I walked quickly across the open space to a spot,
+where I made out a couple of posts set up on the brink--
+doubtless to mark the landing place.
+
+I had not gone ten paces, however, out of the shadow, before I
+chanced to look round, and discerned with an unpleasant eerie
+feeling three figures detach themselves from it, and advance in a
+row behind me, so as the better to cut off my retreat.  I was not
+to succeed in my enterprise too easily then.  That was clear.
+Still I thought it better to act as if I had not seen my
+followers, and collecting myself, I walked as quickly as I could
+down to the steps.  The three were by that time close upon me--
+within striking distance almost.  I turned abruptly and
+confronted them.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?"  I said, eyeing them warily,
+my hand on my sword.
+
+They did not answer, but separated more widely so as to form a
+half-circle:  and one of them whistled.  On the instant a knot of
+men started out of the line of houses, and came quickly across
+the strip of light towards us.
+
+The position seemed serious.  If I could have run indeed--but I
+glanced round, and found escape in that fashion impossible.
+There were men crouching on the steps behind me, between me and
+the river.  I had fallen into a trap.  Indeed, there was nothing
+for it now but to do as Madame had bidden me, and play the man
+boldly.  I had the words still ringing in my ears.  I had enough
+of the excitement I had lately felt still bounding in my veins to
+give nerve and daring.  I folded my arms and drew myself up.
+
+"Knaves!"  I said, with as much quiet contempt as I could muster,
+"you mistake me.  You do not know whom you have to deal with.
+Get me a boat, and let two of you row me across.  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.  It
+was easy to see that he was an Italian.
+
+"A gallant young cock enough," the soldier who had whistled
+answered; "and not quite of the breed we expected."  He held his
+lanthorn towards me and pointed to the white badge on my sleeve.
+"It strikes me we have caught a crow instead of a pigeon!"
+
+"How comes this?"  the Italian asked harshly, addressing me.
+"Who are you?  And why do you wish to cross the river at this
+time of night, young sir?"
+
+I acted on the inspiration of the moment.  "Play the man boldly!"
+Madame had said.  I would:  and I did with a vengeance.  I sprang
+forward and seizing the captain by the clasp of his cloak, shook
+him violently, and flung him off with all my force, so that he
+reeled.  "Dog!"  I exclaimed, advancing, as if I would seize him
+again.  "Learn how to speak to your betters!  Am I to be stopped
+by such sweepings as you?  Hark ye, I am on the King's service!"
+
+He fairly spluttered with rage.  "More like the devil's!"  he
+exclaimed, pronouncing his words abominably, and fumbling vainly
+for his weapon.  "King's service or no service you do not insult
+Andrea Pallavicini!"
+
+I could only vindicate my daring by greater daring, and I saw
+this even as, death staring me in the face, my heart seemed to
+stop.  The man had his mouth open and his hand raised to give an
+order which would certainly have sent Anne de Caylus from the
+world, when I cried passionately--it was my last chance, and I
+never wished to live more strongly than at that moment--I cried
+passionately, "Andrea Pallavicini, if such be your name, look at
+that!  Look at that!"  I repeated, shaking my open hand with the
+ring on it before his face, "and then hinder me if you dare!  To-
+morrow if you have quarterings enough, I will see to your
+quarrel!  Now send me on my way, or your fate be on your own
+head!  Disobey--ay, do but hesitate--and I will call on these
+very men of yours to cut you down!"
+
+It was a bold throw, for I staked all on a talisman of which I
+did not know the value!  To me it was the turn of a die, for I
+had had no leisure to look at the ring, and knew no more than a
+babe whose it was.  But the venture was as happy as desperate.
+
+Andrea Pallavicini's expression--no pleasant one at the best of
+times--changed on the instant.  His face fell as he seized my
+hand, and peered at the ring long and intently.  Then he cast a
+quick glance of suspicion at his men, of hatred at me.  But I
+cared nothing for his glance, or his hatred.  I saw already that
+he had made up his mind to obey the charm:  and that for me was
+everything.  "If you had shown that to me a little earlier, young
+sir, it would, maybe, have been better for both of us," he said,
+a surly menace in his voice.  And cursing his men for their
+stupidity he ordered two of them to unmoor a boat.
+
+Apparently the craft had been secured with more care than skill,
+for to loosen it seemed to be a work of time.  Meanwhile I stood
+waiting in the midst of the group, anxious and yet exultant; an
+object of curiosity, and yet curious myself.  I heard the guards
+whisper together, and caught such phrases as "It is the Duc
+d'Aumale."
+
+"No, it is not D'Aumale.  It is nothing like him."
+
+"Well, he has the Duke's ring, fool!"
+
+"The Duke's?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Then it is all right, God bless him!"  This last was uttered
+with extreme fervour.
+
+I was conscious too of being the object of many respectful
+glances; and had just bidden the men on the steps below me to be
+quick, when I discovered with alarm three figures moving across
+the open space towards us, and coming apparently from the same
+point from which Pallavicini and his men had emerged.
+
+In a moment I foresaw danger.  "Now be quick there!"  I cried
+again.  But scarcely had I spoken before I saw that it was
+impossible to get afloat before these others came up, and I
+prepared to stand my ground resolutely.
+
+The first words, however, with which Pallavicini saluted the new-
+comers scattered my fears.  "Well, what the foul fiend do you
+want?"  he exclaimed rudely; and he rapped out half-a-dozen
+CORPOS before they could answer him.  "What have you brought him
+here for, when I left him in the guard-house?  Imbeciles!"
+
+"Captain Pallavicini," interposed the midmost of the three,
+speaking with patience--he was a man of about thirty, dressed
+with some richness, though his clothes were now disordered as
+though by a struggle--"I have induced these good men to bring me
+down--"
+
+"Then," cried the captain, brutally interrupting him, "you have
+lost your labour, Monsieur."
+
+"You do not know me," replied the prisoner with sternness--a
+prisoner he seemed to be.  "You do not understand that I am a
+friend of the Prince of Conde, and that--"
+
+He would have said more, but the Italian again cut him short.  "A
+fig for the Prince of Conde!"  he cried; "I understand my duty.
+You may as well take things easily.  You cannot cross, and you
+cannot go home, and you cannot have any explanation; except that
+it is the King's will!  Explanation?"  he grumbled, in a lower
+tone, "you will get it soon enough, I warrant!  Before you want
+it!"
+
+"But there is a boat going to cross," said the other, controlling
+his temper by an effort and speaking with dignity.  "You told me
+that by the King's order no one could cross; and you arrested me
+because, having urgent need to visit St. Germain, I persisted.
+Now what does this mean, Captain Pallavicini?  Others are
+crossing.  I ask what this means?"
+
+"Whatever you please, M. de Pavannes," the Italian retorted
+contemptuously.  "Explain it for yourself!"
+
+I started as the name struck my ear, and at once cried out in
+surprise, "M. de Pavannes!"  Had I heard aright?
+
+Apparently I had, for the prisoner turned to me with a bow.
+"Yes, sir," he said with dignity, "I am M. de Pavannes.  I have
+not the honour of knowing you, but you seem to be a gentleman."
+He cast a withering glance at the captain as he said this.
+"Perhaps you will explain to me why this violence has been done
+to me.  If you can, I shall consider it a favour; if not, pardon
+me."
+
+I did not answer him at once, for a good reason--that every
+faculty I had was bent on a close scrutiny of the man himself.
+He was fair, and of a ruddy complexion.  His beard was cut in the
+short pointed fashion of the court; and in these respects he bore
+a kind of likeness, a curious likeness, to Louis de Pavannes.
+But his figure was shorter and stouter.  He was less martial in
+bearing, with more of the air of a scholar than a soldier.  "You
+are related to M. Louis de Pavannes?"  I said, my heart beginning
+to beat with an odd excitement.  I think I foresaw already what
+was coming.
+
+"I am Louis de Pavannes," he replied with impatience.
+
+I stared at him in silence:  thinking--thinking--thinking.  And
+then I said slowly, "You have a cousin of the same name?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"He fell prisoner to the Vicomte de Caylus at Moncontour?"
+
+"He did," he answered curtly.  "But what of that, sir?"
+
+Again I did not answer--at once.  The murder was out.  I
+remembered, in the dim fashion in which one remembers such things
+after the event, that I had heard Louis de Pavannes, when we
+first became acquainted with him, mention this cousin of the same
+name; the head of a younger branch.  But our Louis living in
+Provence and the other in Normandy, the distance between their
+homes, and the troubles of the times had loosened a tie which
+their common religion might have strengthened.  They had scarcely
+ever seen one another.  As Louis had spoken of his namesake but
+once during his long stay with us, and I had not then foreseen
+the connection to be formed between our families, it was no
+wonder that in the course of months the chance word had passed
+out of my head, and I had clean forgotten the subject of it.
+Here however, he was before my eyes, and seeing him; I saw too
+what the discovery meant.  It meant a most joyful thing!  a most
+wonderful thing which I longed to tell Croisette and Marie.  It
+meant that our Louis de Pavannes--my cheek burned for my want of
+faith in him--was no villain after all, but such a noble
+gentleman as we had always till this day thought him!  It meant
+that he was no court gallant bent on breaking a country heart for
+sport, but Kit's own true lover!  And--and it meant more--it
+meant that he was yet in danger, and still ignorant of the vow
+that unchained fiend Bezers had taken to have his life!  In
+pursuing his namesake we had been led astray, how sadly I only
+knew now!  And had indeed lost most precious time.
+
+"Your wife, M. de Pavannes"--I began in haste, seeing the
+necessity of explaining matters with the utmost quickness.  "Your
+wife is--"
+
+"Ah, my wife!"  he cried interrupting me, with anxiety in his
+tone.  "What of her?  You have seen her!"
+
+"I have.  She is safe at your house in the Rue de St. Merri."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that!"  he replied fervently.  Before he could
+say more Captain Andrea interrupted us.  I could see that his
+suspicions were aroused afresh.  He pushed rudely between us, and
+addressing me said, "Now, young sir, your boat is ready."
+
+"My boat?"  I answered, while I rapidly considered the situation.
+Of course I did not want to cross the river now.  No doubt
+Pavannes---this Pavannes--could guide me to Louis' address.  "My
+boat?"
+
+"Yes, it is waiting," the Italian replied, his black eyes roving
+from one to the other of us.
+
+"Then let it wait!"  I answered haughtily, speaking with an
+assumption of anger.  "Plague upon you for interrupting us!  I
+shall not cross the river now.  This gentleman can give me the
+information I want.  I shall take him back with me."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To whom?  To those who sent me, sirrah!"
+
+I thundered.  "You do not seem to be much in the Duke's
+confidence, captain," I went on; "now take a word of advice from
+me!  There is nothing:  so easily cast off as an over-officious
+servant!  He goes too far--and he goes like an old glove!  An old
+glove," I repeated grimly, sneering in his face, "which saves the
+hand and suffers itself.  Beware of too much zeal, Captain
+Pallavicini!  It is a dangerous thing!"
+
+He turned pale with anger at being thus treated by a beardless
+boy.  But he faltered all the same.  What I said was unpleasant,
+but the bravo knew it was true.
+
+I saw the impression I had made, and I turned to the soldiers
+standing round.
+
+"Bring here, my friends," I said, "M. de Pavannes' sword!"
+
+One ran up to the guard house and brought it at once.  They were
+townsfolk, burgher guards or such like, and for some reason
+betrayed so evident a respect for me, that I soberly believe they
+would have turned on their temporary leader at my bidding.
+Pavannes took his sword, and placed it under his arm.  We both
+bowed ceremoniously to Pallavicini, who scowled in response; and
+slowly, for I was afraid to show any signs of haste, we walked
+across the moonlit space to the bottom of the street by which I
+had come.  There the gloom swallowed us up at once.  Pavannes
+touched my sleeve and stopped in the darkness.
+
+"I beg to be allowed to thank you for your aid," he said with
+emotion, turning and facing me.  "Whom have I the honour of
+addressing?"
+
+"M. Anne de Caylus, a friend of your cousin," I replied.
+
+"Indeed?"  he said "well, I thank you most heartily," and we
+embraced with warmth.
+
+"But I could have done little," I answered modestly, "on your
+behalf, if it had not been for this ring."
+
+"And the virtue of the ring lies in--"
+
+"In--I am sure I cannot say in what!"  I confessed.  And then, in
+the sympathy which the scene had naturally created between us, I
+forgot one portion of my lady's commands and I added impulsively,
+"All I know is that Madame d'O gave it me; and that it has done
+all, and more than all she said it would."
+
+"Who gave it to you?"  he asked, grasping my arm so tightly as to
+hurt me.
+
+"Madame d'O," I repeated.  It was too late to draw back now.
+
+"That woman!"  he ejaculated in a strange low whisper.  "Is it
+possible?  That woman gave it you?"
+
+I wandered what on earth he meant, surprise, scorn and dislike
+were so blended in his tone.  It even seemed to me that he drew
+off from me somewhat.  "Yes, M. de Pavannes," I replied, offended
+and indignant, "It is so far possible that it is the truth; and
+more, I think you would not so speak of this lady if you knew
+all; and that it was through her your wife was to-day freed from
+those who were detaining her, and taken safely home!"
+
+"Ha!"  he cried eagerly.  "Then where has my wife been?"
+
+"At the house of Mirepoix, the glover," I answered coldly, "in
+the Rue Platriere.  Do you know him?  You do.  Well, she was kept
+there a prisoner, until we helped her to escape an hour or so
+ago."
+
+He did not seem to comprehend even then.  I could see little of
+his face, but there was doubt and wonder in his tone when he
+spoke.  "Mirepoix the glover," he murmured.  "He is an honest man
+enough, though a Catholic.  She was kept there!  Who kept her
+there?"
+
+"The Abbess of the Ursulines seems to have been at the bottom of
+it," I explained, fretting with impatience.  This wonder was
+misplaced, I thought; and time was passing.  "Madame d'O found
+out where she was," I continued, "and took her home, and then
+sent me to fetch you, hearing you had crossed the river.  That is
+the story in brief."
+
+"That woman sent you to fetch me?"  he repeated again.
+
+"Yes," I answered angrily.  "She did, M. de Pavannes."
+
+"Then," he said slowly, and with an air of solemn conviction
+which could not but impress me, "there is a trap laid for me!
+She is the worst, the most wicked, the vilest of women!  If she
+sent you, this is a trap!  And my wife has fallen into it
+already!  Heaven help her--and me--if it be so!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PARISIAN MATINS.
+
+There are some statements for which it is impossible to be
+prepared; statements so strong and so startling that it is
+impossible to answer them except by action--by a blow.  And this
+of M. de Pavannes was one of these.  If there had been any one
+present, I think I should have given him the lie and drawn upon
+him.  But alone with him at midnight in the shadow near the
+bottom of the Rue des Fosses, with no witnesses, with every
+reason to feel friendly towards him, what was I to do?
+
+As a fact, I did nothing.  I stood, silent and stupefied, waiting
+to hear more.  He did not keep me long.
+
+"She is my wife's sister," he continued grimly.  "But I have no
+reason to shield her on that account!  Shield her?  Had you lived
+at court only a month I might shield her all I could, M. de
+Caylus, it would avail nothing.  Not Madame de Sauves is better
+known.  And I would not if I could!  I know well, though my wife
+will not believe it, that there is nothing so near Madame d'O's
+heart as to get rid of her sister and me--of both of us--that she
+may succeed to Madeleine's inheritance!  Oh, yes, I had good
+grounds for being nervous yesterday, when my wife did not
+return," he added excitedly.
+
+"But there at least you wrong Madame d'O!"  I cried, shocked and
+horrified by an accusation, which seemed so much more dreadful in
+the silence and gloom--and withal so much less preposterous than
+it might have seemed in the daylight.  "There you certainly wrong
+her!  For shame!  M. de Pavannes."
+
+He came a step nearer, and laying a hand on my sleeve peered into
+my face.  "Did you see a priest with her?"  he asked slowly.  "A
+man called the Coadjutor--a down-looking dog?"
+
+I said--with a shiver of dread, a sudden revulsion of feeling,
+born of his manner--that I had.  And I explained the part the
+priest had taken.
+
+"Then," Pavannes rejoined, "I am right There IS a trap laid for
+me.  The Abbess of the Ursulines!  She abduct my wife?  Why, she
+is her dearest friend, believe me.  It is impossible.  She would
+be more likely to save her from danger than to--umph!  wait a
+minute."  I did:  I waited, dreading what he might discover,
+until he muttered, checking himself--"Can that be it?  Can it be
+that the Abbess did know of some danger threatening us, and would
+have put Madeleine in a safe retreat?  I wonder!"
+
+And I wondered; and then--well, thoughts are like gunpowder.  The
+least spark will fire a train.  His words were few, but they
+formed spark enough to raise such a flare in my brain as for a
+moment blinded me, and shook me so that I trembled.  The shock
+over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness
+such as I could never have suspected of myself.  I remembered
+Mirepoix's distress and the priest's eagerness.  I re-called the
+gruff warning Bezers--even Bezers, and there was something very
+odd in Bezers giving a warning!--had given Madame de Pavannes
+when he told her that she would be better where she was.  I
+thought of the wakefulness which I had marked in the streets, the
+silent hurrying to and fro, the signs of coming strife, and
+contrasted these with the quietude and seeming safety of
+Mirepoix's house; and I hastily asked Pavannes at what time he
+had been arrested.
+
+"About an hour before midnight," he answered.
+
+"Then you know nothing of what is happening?"  I replied quickly.
+"Why, even while we are loitering here--but listen!"
+
+And with all speed, stammering indeed in my haste and anxiety, I
+told him what I had noticed in the streets, and the hints I had
+heard, and I showed him the badges with which Madame had
+furnished me.
+
+His manner when he had heard me out frightened me still more.  He
+drew me on in a kind of fury to a house in the windows of which
+some lighted candles had appeared not a minute before.
+
+"The ring!"  he cried, "let me see the ring!  Whose is it?"
+
+He held up my hand to this chance light and we looked at the
+ring.  It was a heavy gold signet, with one curious
+characteristic:  it had two facets.  On one of these was engraved
+the letter "H," and above it a crown.  On the other was an eagle
+with outstretched wings.
+
+Pavannes let my hand drop and leaned against the wall in sudden
+despair.  "It is the Duke of Guise's," he muttered.  "It is the
+eagle of Lorraine."
+
+"Ha!"  said I softly, seeing light.  The Duke was the idol then,
+as later, of the Parisian populace, and I understood now why the
+citizen soldiers had shown me such respect.  They had taken me
+for the Duke's envoy and confidant.
+
+But I saw no farther.  Pavannes did, and murmured bitterly, "We
+may say our prayers, we Huguenots.  That is our death-warrant.
+To-morrow night there will not be one left in Paris, lad.  Guise
+has his father's death to avenge, and these cursed Parisians will
+do his bidding like the wolves they are!  The Baron de Rosny
+warned us of this, word for word.  I would to Heaven we had taken
+his advice!"
+
+"Stay!"  I cried--he was going too fast for me--"stay!"  His
+monstrous conception, though it marched some way with my own
+suspicions, outran them far!  I saw no sufficient grounds for it.
+"The King--the king would not permit such a thing, M. de
+Pavannes," I argued.
+
+"Boy, you are blind!"  he rejoined impatiently, for now he saw
+all and I nothing.  "Yonder was the Duke of Anjou's captain--
+Monsieur's officer, the follower of France's brother, mark you!
+And HE--he obeyed the Duke's ring!  The Duke has a free hand to-
+night, and he hates us.  And the river.  Why are we not to cross
+the river?  The King indeed!  The King has undone us.  He has
+sold us to his brother and the Guises.  VA CHASSER L'IDOLE" for
+the second time I heard the quaint phrase, which I learned
+afterwards was an anagram of the King's name, Charles de Valois,
+used by the Protestants as a password--"VA CHASSER L'IDOLE has
+betrayed us!  I remember the very words he used to the Admiral,
+'Now we have got you here we shall not let you go so easily!'
+Oh, the traitor!  The wretched traitor!"
+
+He leaned against the wall overcome by the horror of the
+conviction which had burst upon him, and unnerved by the
+imminence of the peril.  At all times he was an unready man, I
+fancy, more fit, courage apart, for the college than the field;
+and now he gave way to despair.  Perhaps the thought of his wife
+unmanned him.  Perhaps the excitement through which he had
+already gone tended to stupefy him, or the suddenness of the
+discovery.
+
+At any rate, I was the first to gather my wits together, and my
+earliest impulse was to tear into two parts a white handkerchief
+I had in my pouch, and fasten one to his sleeve, the other in his
+hat, in rough imitation of the badges I wore myself.
+
+It will appear from this that I no longer trusted Madame d'O.  I
+was not convinced, it is true, of her conscious guilt, still I
+did not trust her entirely.  "Do not wear them on your return,"
+she had said and that was odd; although I could not yet believe
+that she was such a siren as Father Pierre had warned us of,
+telling tales from old poets.  Yet I doubted, shuddering as I did
+so.  Her companionship with that vile priest, her strange
+eagerness to secure Pavannes' return, her mysterious directions
+to me, her anxiety to take her sister home--home, where she would
+be exposed to danger, as being in a known Huguenot's house--
+these things pointed to but one conclusion; still that one was so
+horrible that I would not, even while I doubted and distrusted
+her, I would not, I could not accept it.  I put it from me, and
+refused to believe it, although during the rest of that night it
+kept coming back to me and knocking for admission at my brain.
+
+All this flashed through my mind while I was fixing on Pavannes'
+badges.  Not that I lost time about it, for from the moment I
+grasped the position as he conceived it, every minute we had
+wasted on explanations seemed to me an hour.  I reproached myself
+for having forgotten even for an instant that which had brought
+us to town--the rescue of Kit's lover.  We had small chance now
+of reaching him in time, misled as we had been by this miserable
+mistake in identity.  If my companion's fears were well founded,
+Louis would fall in the general massacre of the Huguenots,
+probably before we could reach him.  If ill-founded, still we had
+small reason to hope.  Bezers' vengeance would not wait.  I knew
+him too well to think it.  A Guise might spare his foe, but the
+Vidame--the Vidame never!  We had warned Madame de Pavannes it
+was true; but that abnormal exercise of benevolence could only, I
+cynically thought, have the more exasperated the devil within
+him, which now would be ravening like a dog disappointed of its
+victuals.
+
+I glanced up at the line of sky visible between the tall houses,
+and lo!  the dawn was coming.  It wanted scarcely half-an-hour of
+daylight, though down in the dark streets about us the night
+still reigned.  Yes, the morning was coming, bright and hopeful,
+and the city was quiet.  There were no signs, no sounds of riot
+or disorder.  Surely, I thought, surely Pavannes must be
+mistaken.  Either the plot had never existed, that was most
+likely, or it had been abandoned, or perhaps--Crack!
+
+A pistol shot!  Short, sharp, ominous it rang out on the instant,
+a solitary sound in the night!  It was somewhere near us, and I
+stopped.  I had been speaking to my companion at the moment.
+"Where was it?"  I cried, looking behind me.
+
+"Close to us.  Near the Louvre," he answered, listening intently.
+"See!  See!  Ah, heavens!"  he continued in a voice of despair,
+"it was a signal!"
+
+It was.  One, two, three!  Before I could count so far, lights
+sprang into brightness in the windows of nine out of ten houses
+in the short street where we stood, as if lighted by a single
+hand.  Before too I could count as many more, or ask him what
+this meant, before indeed, we could speak or stir from the spot,
+or think what we should do, with a hurried clang and clash, as if
+brought into motion by furious frenzied hands, a great bell just
+above our heads began to boom and whirr!  It hurled its notes
+into space, it suddenly filled all the silence.  It dashed its
+harsh sounds down upon the trembling city, till the air heaved,
+and the houses about us rocked.  It made in an instant a
+pandemonium of the quiet night.
+
+We turned and hurried instinctively from the place, crouching and
+amazed, looking upwards with bent shoulders and scared faces.
+"What is it?  What is it?"  I cried, half in resentment; half in
+terror.  It deafened me.
+
+"The bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois!"  he shouted in answer.
+"The Church of the Louvre.  It is as I said.  We are doomed!"
+
+"Doomed?  No!"  I replied fiercely, for my courage seemed to rise
+again on the wave of sound and excitement as if rebounding from
+the momentary shock.  "Never!  We wear the devil's livery, and he
+will look after his own.  Draw, man, and let him that stops us
+look to himself.  You know the way.  Lead on!"  I cried savagely.
+
+He caught the infection and drew his sword.  So we started
+boldly, and the result justified my confidence.  We looked, no
+doubt, as like murderers as any who were abroad that night.
+Moving in this desperate guise we hastened up that street and
+into another--still pursued by the din and clangour of the bell
+--and then a short distance along a third.  We were not stopped
+or addressed by anyone, though numbers, increasing each moment as
+door after door opened, and we drew nearer to the heart of the
+commotion, were hurrying in the same direction, side by side with
+us; and though in front, where now and again lights gleamed on a
+mass of weapons, or on white eager faces, filling some alley from
+wall to wall, we heard the roar of voices rising and falling like
+the murmur of an angry sea.
+
+All was blur, hurry, confusion, tumult.  Yet I remember, as we
+pressed onwards with the stream and part of it, certain sharp
+outlines.  I caught here and there a glimpse of a pale scared
+face at a window, a half-clad form at a door, of the big,
+wondering eyes of a child held up to see us pass, of a Christ at
+a corner ruddy in the smoky glare of a link, of a woman armed,
+and in man's clothes, who walked some distance side by side with
+us, and led off a ribald song.  I retain a memory of these
+things:  of brief bursts of light and long intervals of darkness,
+and always, as we tramped forwards, my hand on Pavannes' sleeve,
+of an ever-growing tumult in front--an ever-rising flood of
+noise.
+
+At last we came to a standstill where a side street ran out of
+ours.  Into this the hurrying throng tried to wheel, and, unable
+to do so, halted, and pressed about the head of the street, which
+was already full to overflowing; and so sought with hungry eyes
+for places whence they might look down it.  Pavannes and I
+struggled only to get through the crowd--to get on; but the
+efforts of those behind partly aiding and partly thwarting our
+own, presently forced us to a position whence we could not avoid
+seeing what was afoot.
+
+The street--this side street was ablaze with light.  From end to
+end every gable, every hatchment was glowing, every window was
+flickering in the glare of torches.  It was paved too with faces
+--human faces, yet scarcely human--all looking one way, all
+looking upward; and the noise, as from time to time this immense
+crowd groaned or howled in unison, like a wild beast in its fury,
+was so appalling, that I clutched Pavannes' arm and clung to him
+in momentary terror.  I do not wonder now that I quailed, though
+sometimes I have heard that sound since.  For there is nothing in
+the world so dreadful as that brute beast we call the CANAILLE,
+when the chain is off and its cowardly soul is roused.
+
+Near our end of the street a group of horsemen rising island-like
+from the sea of heads, sat motionless in their saddles about a
+gateway.  They were silent, taking no notice of the rioting
+fiends shouting at their girths, but watching in grim quiet what
+was passing within the gates.  They were handsomely dressed,
+although some wore corslets over their satin coats or lace above
+buff jerkins.  I could even at that distance see the jewels gleam
+in the bonnet of one who seemed to be their leader.  He was in
+the centre of the band, a very young man, perhaps twenty or
+twenty-one, of most splendid presence, sitting his horse
+superbly.  He wore a grey riding-coat, and was a head taller than
+any of his companions.  There was pride in the very air with
+which his horse bore him.
+
+I did not need to ask Pavannes who he was.  I KNEW that he was
+the Duke of Guise, and that the house before which he stood was
+Coligny's.  I knew what was being done there.  And in the same
+moment I sickened with horror and rage.  I had a vision of grey
+hairs and blood and fury scarcely human, And I rebelled.  I
+battled with the rabble about me.  I forced my way through them
+tooth and nail after Pavannes, intent only on escaping, only on
+getting away from there.  And so we neither halted nor looked
+back until we were clear of the crowd and had left the blaze of
+light and the work doing by it some way behind us.
+
+We found ourselves then in the mouth of an obscure alley which my
+companion whispered would bring us to his house; and here we
+paused to take breath and look back.  The sky was red behind us,
+the air full of the clash and din of the tocsin, and the flood of
+sounds which poured from every tower and steeple.  From the
+eastward came the rattle of drums and random shots, and shrieks
+of "A BAS COLIGNY!"  "A BAS LES HUGUENOTS!"  Meanwhile the city
+was rising as one man, pale at this dread awakening.  From every
+window men and women, frightened by the uproar, were craning
+their necks, asking or answering questions or hurriedly calling
+for and kindling tapers.  But as yet the general populace seemed
+to be taking no active part in the disorder.
+
+Pavannes raised his hat an instant as we stood in the shadow of
+the houses.  "The noblest man in France is dead," he said, softly
+and reverently.  "God rest his soul!  They have had their way
+with him and killed him like a dog.  He was an old man and they
+did not spare him!  A noble, and they have called in the CANAILLE
+to tear him.  But be sure, my friend"--and as the speaker's tone
+changed and grew full and proud, his form seemed to swell with
+it--"be sure the cruel shall not live out half their days!  No.
+He that takes the knife shall perish by the knife!  And go to his
+own place!  I shall not see it, but you will!"
+
+His words made no great impression on me then.  My hardihood was
+returning.  I was throbbing with fierce excitement, and tingling
+for the fight.  But years afterwards, when the two who stood
+highest in the group about Coligny's threshold died, the one at
+thirty-eight, the other at thirty-five--when Henry of Guise and
+Henry of Valois died within six months of one another by the
+assassin's knife--I remembered Pavannes' augury.  And remembering
+it, I read the ways of Providence, and saw that the very audacity
+of which Guise took advantage to entrap Coligny led him too in
+his turn to trip smiling and bowing, a comfit box in his hand and
+the kisses of his mistress damp on his lips, into a king's
+closet--a king's closet at Blois!  Led him to lift the curtain--
+ah!  to lift the curtain, what Frenchman does not know the tale?
+--behind which stood the Admiral!
+
+To return to our own fortunes; after a hurried glance we resumed
+our way, and sped through the alley, holding a brief consultation
+as we went.  Pavannes' first hasty instinct to seek shelter at
+home began to lose its force, and he to consider whether his
+return would not endanger his wife.  The mob might be expected to
+spare her, he argued.  Her death would not benefit any private
+foes if he escaped.  He was for keeping away therefore.  But I
+would not agree to this.  The priest's crew of desperadoes--
+assuming Pavannes' suspicions to be correct--would wait some
+time, no doubt, to give the master of the house a chance to
+return, but would certainly attack sooner or later out of greed,
+if from no other motive.  Then the lady's fate would at the best
+be uncertain.  I was anxious myself to rejoin my brothers, and
+take all future chances, whether of saving our Louis, or escaping
+ourselves, with them.  United we should be four good swords, and
+might at least protect Madame de Pavannes to a place of safety,
+if no opportunity of succouring Louis should present itself.  We
+had too the Duke's ring, and this might be of service at a pinch.
+"No," I urged, "let us get together.  We two will slip in at the
+front gate, and bolt and bar it, and then we will all escape in a
+body at the back, while they are forcing the gateway."
+
+"There is no door at the back," he answered, shaking his head.
+
+"There are windows?"
+
+"They are too strongly barred.  We could not break out in the
+time," he explained, with a groan.
+
+I paused at that, crestfallen.  But danger quickened my wits.  In
+a moment I had another plan, not so hopeful and more dangerous,
+yet worth trying I thought, I told him of it, and he agreed to
+it.  As he nodded assent we emerged into a street, and I saw--for
+the grey light of morning was beginning to penetrate between the
+houses--that we were only a few yards from the gateway, and the
+small door by which I had seen my brothers enter.  Were they
+still in the house?  Were they safe?  I had been away an hour at
+least.
+
+Anxious as I was about them, I looked round me very keenly as we
+flitted across the road, and knocked gently at the door.  I
+thought it so likely that we should be fallen upon here, that I
+stood on my guard while we waited.  But we were not molested.
+The street, being at some distance from the centre of the
+commotion, was still and empty, with no signs of life apparent
+except the rows of heads poked through the windows--all
+possessing eyes which watched us heedfully and in perfect
+silence.  Yes, the street was quite empty:  except, ah!  except,
+for that lurking figure, which, even as I espied it, shot round a
+distant angle of the wall, and was lost to sight.
+
+"There!"  I cried, reckless now who might hear me, "knock!  knock
+louder!  never mind the noise.  The alarm is given.  A score of
+people are watching us, and yonder spy has gone off to summon his
+friends."
+
+The truth was my anger was rising.  I could bear no longer the
+silent regards of all those eyes at the windows.  I writhed under
+them--cruel, pitiless eyes they were.  I read in them a morbid
+curiosity, a patient anticipation that drove me wild.  Those men
+and women gazing on us so stonily knew my companion's rank and
+faith.  They had watched him riding in and out daily, one of the
+sights of their street, gay and gallant; and now with the same
+eyes they were watching greedily for the butchers to come.  The
+very children took a fresh interest in him, as one doomed and
+dying; and waited panting for the show to begin.  So I read them.
+
+"Knock!"  I repeated angrily, losing all patience.  Had I been
+foolish in bringing him back to this part of the town where every
+soul knew him?  "Knock; we must get in, whether or no.  They
+cannot all have left the house!"
+
+I kicked the door desperately, and my relief was great when it
+opened.  A servant with a pale face stood before me, his knees
+visibly shaking.  And behind him was Croisette.
+
+I think we fell straightway into one another's arms.
+
+"And Marie," I cried, "Marie?"
+
+"Marie is within, and madame," he answered joyfully; "we are
+together again and nothing matters, But oh, Anne, where have you
+been?  And what is the matter?  Is it a great fire?  Or is the
+king dead?  Or what is it?"
+
+I told him.  I hastily poured out some of the things which had
+happened to me, and some which I feared were in store for others.
+Naturally he was surprised and shocked by the latter, though his
+fears had already been aroused.  But his joy and relief, when he
+heard the mystery of Louis de Pavannes' marriage explained, were
+so great that they swallowed up all other feelings.  He could not
+say enough about it.  He pictured Louis again and again as Kit's
+lover, as our old friend, our companion; as true, staunch, brave
+without fear, without reproach:  and it was long before his eyes
+ceased to sparkle, his tongue to run merrily, the colour to
+mantle in his cheeks--long that is as time is counted by minutes.
+But presently the remembrance of Louis' danger and our own
+position returned more vividly.  Our plan for rescuing him had
+failed--failed!
+
+"No!  no!"  cried Croisette, stoutly.  He would not hear of it.
+He would not have it at any price.  "No, we will not give up
+hope!  We will go shoulder to shoulder and find him.  Louis is as
+brave as a lion and as quick as a weasel.  We will find him in
+time yet.  We will go when--I mean as soon as--"
+
+He faltered, and paused.  His sudden silence as he looked round
+the empty forecourt in which we stood was eloquent.  The cold
+light, faint and uncertain yet, was stealing into the court,
+disclosing a row of stables on either side, and a tiny porter's
+hutch by the gates, and fronting us a noble house of four storys,
+tall, grey, grim-looking.
+
+I assented; gloomily however.  "Yes," I said, "we will go when--"
+
+And I too stopped.  The same thought was in my mind.  How could
+we leave these people?  How could we leave madame in her danger
+and distress?  How could we return her kindness by desertion?  We
+could not.  No, not for Kit's sake.  Because after all Louis, our
+Louis, was a man, and must take his chance.  He must take his
+chance.  But I groaned.
+
+So that was settled.  I had already explained our plan to
+Croisette:  and now as we waited he began to tell me a story, a
+long, confused story about Madame d'O.  I thought he was talking
+for the sake of talking--to keep up our spirits--and I did not
+attend much to him; so that he had not reached the gist of it, or
+at least I had not grasped it, when a noise without stayed his
+tongue.  It was the tramp of footsteps, apparently of a large
+party in the street.  It forced him to break off, and promptly
+drove us all to our posts.
+
+But before we separated a slight figure, hardly noticeable in
+that dim, uncertain light, passed me quickly, laying for an
+instant a soft hand in mine as I stood waiting by the gates.  I
+have said I scarcely saw the figure, though I did see the kind
+timid eyes, and the pale cheeks under the hood; but I bent over
+the hand and kissed it, and felt, truth to tell, no more regret
+nor doubt where our duty lay.  But stood, waiting patiently.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE HEAD OF ERASMUS.
+
+Waiting, and waiting alone!  The gates were almost down now.  The
+gang of ruffians without, reinforced each moment by volunteers
+eager for plunder, rained blows unceasingly on hinge and socket;
+and still hotter and faster through a dozen rifts in the timbers
+came the fire of their threats and curses.  Many grew tired, but
+others replaced them.  Tools broke, but they brought more and
+worked with savage energy.  They had shown at first a measure of
+prudence; looking to be fired on, and to be resisted by men,
+surprised, indeed, but desperate; and the bolder of them only had
+advanced.  But now they pressed round unchecked, meeting no
+resistance.  They would scarcely stand back to let the sledges
+have swing; but hallooed and ran in on the creaking beams and
+beat them with their fists, whenever the gates swayed under a
+blow.
+
+One stout iron bar still held its place.  And this I watched as
+if fascinated.  I was alone in the empty courtyard, standing a
+little aside, sheltered by one of the stone pillars from which
+the gates hung.  Behind me the door of the house stood ajar.
+Candles, which the daylight rendered garish, still burned in the
+rooms on the first floor, of which the tall narrow windows were
+open.  On the wide stone sill of one of these stood Croisette, a
+boyish figure, looking silently down at me, his hand on the
+latticed shutter.  He looked pale, and I nodded and smiled at
+him.  I felt rather anger than fear myself; remembering, as the
+fiendish cries half-deafened me, old tales of the Jacquerie and
+its doings, and how we had trodden it out.
+
+Suddenly the din and tumult flashed to a louder note; as when
+hounds on the scent give tongue at sight.  I turned quickly from
+the house, recalled to a sense of the position and peril.  The
+iron bar was yielding to the pressure.  Slowly the left wing of
+the gate was sinking inwards.  Through the widening chasm I
+caught a glimpse of wild, grimy faces and bloodshot eyes, and
+heard above the noise a sharp cry from Croisette--a cry of
+terror.  Then I turned and ran, with a defiant gesture and an
+answering yell, right across the forecourt and up the steps to
+the door.
+
+I ran the faster for the sharp report of a pistol behind me, and
+the whirr of a ball past my ear.  But I was not scared by it:
+and as my feet alighted with a bound on the topmost step, I
+glanced back.  The dogs were halfway across the court.  I made a
+bungling attempt to shut and lock the great door--failed in this;
+and heard behind me a roar of coarse triumph.  I waited for no
+more. I darted up the oak staircase four steps at a time, and
+rushed into the great drawing-room on my left, banging the door
+behind me.
+
+The once splendid room was in a state of strange disorder.  Some
+of the rich tapestry had been hastily torn down.  One window was
+closed and shuttered; no doubt Croisette had done it.  The other
+two were open--as if there had not been time to close them--and
+the cold light which they admitted contrasted in ghastly fashion
+with the yellow rays of candles still burning in the sconces.
+The furniture had been huddled aside or piled into a barricade, a
+CHEVAUX DE FRISE of chairs and tables stretching across the width
+of the room, its interstices stuffed with, and its weakness
+partly screened by, the torn-down hangings.  Behind this frail
+defence their backs to a door which seemed to lead to an inner
+room, stood Marie and Croisette, pale and defiant.  The former
+had a long pike; the latter levelled a heavy, bell-mouthed
+arquebuse across the back of a chair, and blew up his match as I
+entered.  Both had in addition procured swords.  I darted like a
+rabbit through a little tunnel left on purpose for me in the
+rampart, and took my stand by them.
+
+"Is all right?"  ejaculated Croisette turning to me nervously.
+
+"All right, I think," I answered.  I was breathless.
+
+"You are not hurt?"
+
+"Not touched!"
+
+I had just time then to draw my sword before the assailants
+streamed into the room, a dozen ruffians, reeking and tattered,
+with flushed faces and greedy, staring eyes.  Once inside,
+however, suddenly--so suddenly that an idle spectator might have
+found the change ludicrous--they came to a stop.  Their wild
+cries ceased, and tumbling over one another with curses and oaths
+they halted, surveying us in muddled surprise; seeing what was
+before them, and not liking it.  Their leader appeared to be a
+tall butcher with a pole-axe on his half-naked shoulder; but
+there were among them two or three soldiers in the royal livery
+and carrying pikes.  They had looked for victims only, having met
+with no resistance at the gate, and the foremost recoiled now on
+finding themselves confronted by the muzzle of the arquebuse and
+the lighted match.
+
+I seized the occasion.  I knew, indeed, that the pause presented
+our only chance, and I sprang on a chair and waved my hand for
+silence.  The instinct of obedience for the moment asserted
+itself; there was a stillness in the room.
+
+"Beware!"  I cried loudly--as loudly and confidently as I could,
+considering that there was a quaver at my heart as I looked on
+those savage faces, which met and yet avoided my eye.  "Beware of
+what you do!  We are Catholics one and all like yourselves, and
+good sons of the Church.  Ay, and good subjects too!  VIVE LE
+ROI, gentlemen!  God save the King!  I say."  And I struck the
+barricade with my sword until the metal rang again.  "God save
+the King!"
+
+"Cry VIVE LA MESSE!"  shouted one.
+
+"Certainly, gentlemen!"  I replied, with politeness.  "With all
+my heart.  VIVE LA MESSE!  VIVE LA MESSE!"
+
+This took the butcher, who luckily was still sober, utterly
+aback.  He had never thought of this.  He stared at us as if the
+ox he had been about to fell had opened its mouth and spoken, and
+grievously at a loss, he looked for help to his companions.
+
+Later in the day, some Catholics were killed by the mob.  But
+their deaths as far as could be learned afterwards were due to
+private feuds.  Save in such cases--and they were few--the cry of
+VIVE LA MESSE!  always obtained at least a respite:  more easily
+of course in the earlier hours of the morning when the mob were
+scarce at ease in their liberty to kill, while killing still
+seemed murder, and men were not yet drunk with bloodshed.
+
+I read the hesitation of the gang in their faces:  and when one
+asked roughly who we were, I replied with greater boldness, "I am
+M. Anne de Caylus, nephew to the Vicomte de Caylus, Governor,
+under the King, of Bayonne and the Landes!"  This I said with
+what majesty I could.  "And these" I continued--"are my brothers.
+You will harm us at your peril, gentlemen.  The Vicomte, believe
+me, will avenge every hair of our heads."
+
+I can shut my eyes now and see the stupid wonder, the baulked
+ferocity of those gaping faces.  Dull and savage as the men were
+they were impressed; they saw reason indeed, and all seemed going
+well for us when some one in the rear shouted, "Cursed whelps!
+Throw them over!"
+
+I looked swiftly in the direction whence the voice came--the
+darkest corner of the room the corner by the shuttered window.  I
+thought I made out a slender figure, cloaked and masked--a
+woman's it might be but I could not be certain and beside it a
+couple of sturdy fellows, who kept apart from the herd and well
+behind their fugleman.
+
+The speaker's courage arose no doubt from his position at the
+back of the room, for the foremost of the assailants seemed less
+determined.  We were only three, and we must have gone down,
+barricade and all, before a rush.  But three are three.  And an
+arquebuse--Croisette's match burned splendidly--well loaded with
+slugs is an ugly weapon at five paces, and makes nasty wounds,
+besides scattering its charge famously.  This, a good many of
+them and the leaders in particular, seemed to recognise.  We
+might certainly take two or three lives:  and life is valuable to
+its owner when plunder is afoot.  Besides most of them had common
+sense enough to remember that there were scores of Huguenots
+--genuine heretics--to be robbed for the killing, so why go out
+of the way, they reasoned, to cut a Catholic throat, and perhaps
+get into trouble.  Why risk Montfaucon for a whim?  and offend a
+man of influence like the Vicomte de Caylus, for nothing!
+
+Unfortunately at this crisis their original design was recalled
+to their minds by the same voice behind, crying out, "Pavannes!
+Where is Pavannes?"
+
+"Ay!"  shouted the butcher, grasping the idea, and at the same
+time spitting on his hands and taking a fresh grip of the axe,
+"Show us the heretic dog, and go!  Let us at him."
+
+"M. de Pavannes," I said coolly--but I could not take my eyes off
+the shining blade of that man's axe, it was so very broad and
+sharp--"is not here!"
+
+"That is a lie!  He is in that room behind you!"  the prudent
+gentleman in the background called out.  "Give him up!"
+
+"Ay, give him up!"  echoed the man of the pole-axe almost good
+humouredly, "or it will be the worse for you.  Let us have at him
+and get you gone!"
+
+This with an air of much reason, while a growl as of a chained
+beast ran through the crowd, mingled with cries of "A MORT LES
+HUGUENOTS!  VIVE LORRAINE!"--cries which seemed to show that all
+did not approve of the indulgence offered us.
+
+"Beware, gentlemen, beware," I urged, "I swear he is not here!  I
+swear it, do you hear?"
+
+A howl of impatience and then a sudden movement of the crowd as
+though the rush were coming warned me to temporize no longer.
+"Stay!  Stay!"  I added hastily.  "One minute!  Hear me!  You are
+too many for us.  Will you swear to let us go safe and untouched,
+if we give you passage?"
+
+A dozen voices shrieked assent.  But I looked at the butcher
+only.  He seemed to be an honest man, out of his profession.
+
+"Ay, I swear it!"  he cried with a nod.
+
+"By the Mass?"
+
+"By the Mass."
+
+I twitched Croisette's sleeve, and he tore the fuse from his
+weapon, and flung the gun--too heavy to be of use to us longer--
+to the ground.  It was done in a moment.  While the mob swept
+over the barricade, and smashed the rich furniture of it in
+wanton malice, we filed aside, and nimbly slipped under it one by
+one.  Then we hurried in single file to the end of the room, no
+one taking much notice of us.  All were pressing on, intent on
+their prey.  We gained the door as the butcher struck his first
+blow on that which we had guarded--on that which we had given up.
+We sprang down the stairs with bounding hearts, heard as we
+reached the outer door the roar of many voices, but stayed not to
+look behind--paused indeed for nothing.  Fear, to speak candidly,
+lent us wings.  In three seconds we had leapt the prostrate
+gates, and were in the street.  A cripple, two or three dogs, a
+knot of women looking timidly yet curiously in, a horse tethered
+to the staple--we saw nothing else.  No one stayed us.  No one
+raised a hand, and in another minute we had turned a corner, and
+were out of sight of the house.
+
+"They will take a gentleman's word another time," I said with a
+quiet smile as I put up my sword.
+
+"I would like to see her face at this moment," Croisette replied.
+"You saw Madame d'O?"
+
+I shook my head, not answering.  I was not sure, and I had a
+queer, sickening dread of the subject.  If I had seen her, I had
+seen oh!  it was too horrible, too unnatural!  Her own sister!
+Her own brother in-law!
+
+I hastened to change the subject.  "The Pavannes," I made shift
+to say, "must have had five minutes' start."
+
+"More," Croisette answered, "if Madame and he got away at once.
+If all has gone well with them, and they have not been stopped in
+the streets they should be at Mirepoix's by now.  They seemed to
+be pretty sure that he would take them in."
+
+"Ah!"  I sighed.  "What fools we were to bring madame from that
+place!  If we had not meddled with her affairs we might have
+reached Louis long ago our Louis, I mean."
+
+"True," Croisette answered softly, "but remember that then we
+should not have saved the other Louis as I trust we have.  He
+would still be in Pallavicini's hands.  Come, Anne, let us think
+it is all for the best," he added, his face shining with a steady
+courage that shamed me.  "To the rescue!  Heaven will help us to
+be in time yet!"
+
+"Ay, to the rescue!"  I replied, catching his spirit.  "First to
+the right, I think, second to the left, first on the right again.
+That was the direction given us, was it not?  The house opposite
+a book-shop with the sign of the Head of Erasmus.  Forward, boys!
+We may do it yet."
+
+But before I pursue our fortunes farther let me explain.  The
+room we had guarded so jealously was empty!  The plan had been
+mine and I was proud of it.  For once Croisette had fallen into
+his rightful place.  My flight from the gate, the vain attempt to
+close the house, the barricade before the inner door--these were
+all designed to draw the assailants to one spot.  Pavannes and
+his wife--the latter hastily disguised as a boy--had hidden
+behind the door of the hutch by the gates--the porter's hutch,
+and had slipped out and fled in the first confusion of the
+attack.
+
+Even the servants, as we learned afterwards, who had hidden
+themselves in the lower parts of the house got away in the same
+manner, though some of them--they were but few in all were
+stopped as Huguenots and killed before the day ended.  I had the
+more reason to hope that Pavannes and his wife would get clear
+off, inasmuch as I had given the Duke's ring to him, thinking it
+might serve him in a strait, and believing that we should have
+little to fear ourselves once clear of his house; unless we
+should meet the Vidame indeed.
+
+We did not meet him as it turned out; but before we had traversed
+a quarter of the distance we had to go we found that fears based
+on reason were not the only terrors we had to resist.  Pavannes'
+house, where we had hitherto been, stood at some distance from
+the centre of the blood-storm which was enwrapping unhappy Paris
+that morning.  It was several hundred paces from the Rue de
+Bethisy where the Admiral lived, and what with this comparative
+remoteness and the excitement of our own little drama, we had not
+attended much to the fury of the bells, the shots and cries and
+uproar which proclaimed the state of the city.  We had not
+pictured the scenes which were happening so near.  Now in the
+streets the truth broke upon us, and drove the blood from our
+cheeks.  A hundred yards, the turning of a corner, sufficed.  We
+who but yesterday left the country, who only a week before were
+boys, careless as other boys, not recking of death at all, were
+plunged now into the midst of horrors I cannot describe.  And the
+awful contrast between the sky above and the things about us!
+Even now the lark was singing not far from us; the sunshine was
+striking the topmost storeys of the houses; the fleecy clouds
+were passing overhead, the freshness of a summer morning was--
+
+Ah!  where was it?  Not here in the narrow lanes surely, that
+echoed and re-echoed with shrieks and curses and frantic prayers:
+in which bands of furious men rushed up and down, and where
+archers of the guard and the more cruel rabble were breaking in
+doors and windows, and hurrying with bloody weapons from house to
+house, seeking, pursuing, and at last killing in some horrid
+corner, some place of darkness--killing with blow on blow dealt
+on writhing bodies!  Not here, surely, where each minute a child,
+a woman died silently, a man snarling like a wolf--happy if he
+had snatched his weapon and got his back to the wall:  where foul
+corpses dammed the very blood that ran down the kennel, and
+children--little children--played with them!
+
+I was at Cahors in 1580 in the great street fight; and there
+women were killed, I was with Chatillon nine years later, when he
+rode through the Faubourgs of Paris, with this very day and his
+father Coligny in his mind, and gave no quarter.  I was at
+Courtas and Ivry, and more than once have seen prisoners led out
+to be piked in batches--ay, and by hundreds!  But war is war, and
+these were its victims, dying for the most part under God's
+heaven with arms in their hands:  not men and women fresh roused
+from their sleep.  I felt on those occasions no such horror, I
+have never felt such burning pity and indignation as on the
+morning I am describing, that long-past summer morning when I
+first saw the sun shining on the streets of Paris.  Croisette
+clung to me, sick and white, shutting his eyes and ears, and
+letting me guide him as I would.  Marie strode along on the other
+side of him, his lips closed, his eyes sinister.  Once a soldier
+of the guard whose blood-stained hands betrayed the work he had
+done, came reeling--he was drunk, as were many of the butchers--
+across our path, and I gave way a little.  Marie did not, but
+walked stolidly on as if he did not see him, as if the way were
+clear, and there were no ugly thing in God's image blocking it.
+
+Only his hand went as if by accident to the haft of his dagger.
+The archer--fortunately for himself and for us too--reeled clear
+of us.  We escaped that danger.  But to see women killed and pass
+by--it was horrible!  So horrible that if in those moments I had
+had the wishing-cap, I would have asked but for five thousand
+riders, and leave to charge with them through the streets of
+Paris!  I would have had the days of the Jacquerie back again,
+and my men-at-arms behind me!
+
+For ourselves, though the orgy was at its height when we passed,
+we were not molested.  We were stopped indeed three times--once
+in each of the streets we traversed--by different bands of
+murderers.  But as we wore the same badges as themselves, and
+cried "VIVE LA MESSE!"  and gave our names, we were allowed to
+proceed.  I can give no idea of the confusion and uproar, and I
+scarcely believe myself now that we saw some of the things we
+witnessed.  Once a man gaily dressed, and splendidly mounted,
+dashed past us, waving his naked sword and crying in a frenzied
+way "Bleed them!  Bleed them!  Bleed in May, as good to-day!"
+and never ceased crying out the same words until he passed beyond
+our hearing.  Once we came upon the bodies of a father and two
+sons, which lay piled together in the kennel; partly stripped
+already. The youngest boy could not have been more than thirteen,
+I mention this group, not as surpassing others in pathos, but
+because it is well known now that this boy, Jacques Nompar de
+Caumont, was not dead, but lives to-day, my friend the Marshal de
+la Force.
+
+This reminds me too of the single act of kindness we were able to
+perform.  We found ourselves suddenly, on turning a corner, amid
+a gang of seven or eight soldiers, who had stopped and surrounded
+a handsome boy, apparently about fourteen.  He wore a scholar's
+gown, and had some books under his arm, to which he clung firmly
+--though only perhaps by instinct--notwithstanding the furious
+air of the men who were threatening him with death.  They were
+loudly demanding his name, as we paused opposite them.  He either
+could not or would not give it, but said several times in his
+fright that he was going to the College of Burgundy.  Was he a
+Catholic?  they cried.  He was silent.  With an oath the man who
+had hold of his collar lifted up his pike, and naturally the lad
+raised the books to guard his face.  A cry broke from Croisette.
+We rushed forward to stay the blow.
+
+"See!  see!"  he exclaimed loudly, his voice arresting the man's
+arm in the very act of falling.  "He has a Mass Book!  He has a
+Mass Book!  He is not a heretic!  He is a Catholic!"
+
+The fellow lowered his weapon, and sullenly snatched the books.
+He looked at them stupidly with bloodshot wandering eyes, the red
+cross on the vellum bindings, the only thing he understood.  But
+it was enough for him; he bid the boy begone, and released him
+with a cuff and an oath.
+
+Croisette was not satisfied with this, though I did not
+understand his reason; only I saw him exchange a glance with the
+lad.  "Come, come!"  he said lightly.  "Give him his books!  You
+do not want them!"
+
+But on that the men turned savagely upon us.  They did not thank
+us for the part we had already taken; and this they thought was
+going too far.  They were half drunk and quarrelsome, and being
+two to one, and two over, began to flourish their weapons in our
+faces.  Mischief would certainly have been done, and very
+quickly, had not an unexpected ally appeared on our side.
+
+"Put up!  put up!"  this gentleman cried in a boisterous voice--
+he was already in our midst.  "What is all this about?  What is
+the use of fighting amongst ourselves, when there is many a bonny
+throat to cut, and heaven to be gained by it!  put up, I say!"
+
+"Who are you?"  they roared in chorus.
+
+"The Duke of Guise!"  he answered coolly.  "Let the gentlemen go,
+and be hanged to you, you rascals!"
+
+The man's bearing was a stronger argument than his words, for I
+am sure that a stouter or more reckless blade never swaggered in
+church or street.  I knew him instantly, and even the crew of
+butchers seemed to see in him their master.  They hung back a few
+curses at him, but having nothing to gain they yielded.  They
+threw down the books with contempt--showing thereby their sense
+of true religion; and trooped off roaring, "TUES!  TUES!  Aux
+Huguenots!"  at the top of their voices.
+
+The newcomer thus left with us was Bure--Blaise Bure--the same
+who only yesterday, though it seemed months and months back, had
+lured us into Bezers' power.  Since that moment we had not seen
+him.  Now he had wiped off part of the debt, and we looked at
+him, uncertain whether to reproach him or no.  He, however, was
+not one whit abashed, but returned our regards with a not
+unkindly leer.
+
+"I bear no malice, young gentlemen," he said impudently.
+
+"No, I should think not," I answered.
+
+"And besides, we are quits now," the knave continued.
+
+"You are very kind," I said.
+
+"To be sure.  You did me a good turn once," he answered, much to
+my surprise.  He seemed to be in earnest now.  "You do not
+remember it, young gentleman, but it was you and your brother
+here"--he pointed to Croisette--"did it!  And by the Pope and the
+King of Spain I have not forgotten it!"
+
+"I have," I said.
+
+"What!  You have forgotten spitting that fellow at Caylus ten
+days ago?  CA!  SA!  You remember.  And very cleanly done, too!
+A pretty stroke!  Well, M. Anne, that was a clever fellow, a very
+clever fellow.  He thought so and I thought so, and what was more
+to the purpose the most noble Raoul de Bezers thought so too.
+You understand!"
+
+He leered at me and I did understand.  I understood that
+unwittingly I had rid Blaise Bure of a rival.  This accounted for
+the respectful, almost the kindly way in which he had--well,
+deceived us.
+
+"That is all," he said.  "If you want as much done for you, let
+me know.  For the present, gentlemen, farewell!"
+
+He cocked his hat fiercely, and went off at speed the way we had
+ourselves been going; humming as he went,
+
+  "Ce petit homme tant joli,
+   Qui toujours cause et toujours rit,
+   Qui toujours baise sa mignonne
+   Dieu gard' de mal ce petit homme!"
+
+His reckless song came back to us on the summer breeze.  We
+watched him make a playful pass at a corpse which some one had
+propped in ghastly fashion against a door--and miss it--and go on
+whistling the same air--and then a corner hid him from view.
+
+We lingered only a moment ourselves; merely to speak to the boy
+we had befriended.
+
+"Show the books if anyone challenges you," said Croisette to him
+shrewdly.  Croisette was so much of a boy himself, with his fair
+hair like a halo about his white, excited face, that the picture
+of the two, one advising the other, seemed to me a strangely
+pretty one.  "Show the books and point to the cross on them.  And
+Heaven send you safe to your college."
+
+"I would like to know your name, if you please," said the boy.
+His coolness and dignity struck me as admirable under the
+circumstances.  "I am Maximilian de Bethune, son of the Baron de
+Rosny."
+
+"Then," said Croisette briskly, "one good turn has deserved
+another.  Your father, yesterday, at Etampes--no it was the day
+before, but we have not been in bed--warned us--"
+
+He broke off suddenly; then cried, "Run!  run!"
+
+The boy needed no second warning indeed.  He was off like the
+wind down the street, for we had seen and so had he, the stealthy
+approach of two or three prowling rascals on the look out for a
+victim.  They caught sight of him and were strongly inclined to
+follow him; but we were their match in numbers.  The street was
+otherwise empty at the moment:  and we showed them three
+excellent reasons why they should give him a clear start.
+
+His after adventures are well-known:  for he, too, lives.  He was
+stopped twice after he left us.  In each case he escaped by
+showing his book of offices.  On reaching the college the porter
+refused to admit him, and he remained for some time in the open
+street exposed to constant danger of losing his life, and knowing
+not what to do.  At length he induced the gatekeeper, by the
+present of some small pieces of money, to call the principal of
+the college, and this man humanely concealed him for three days.
+The massacre being then at an end, two armed men in his father's
+pay sought him out and restored him to his friends.  So near was
+France to losing her greatest minister, the Duke de Sully.
+
+To return to ourselves.  The lad out of sight, we instantly
+resumed our purpose, and trying to shut our eyes and ears to the
+cruelty, and ribaldry, and uproar through which we had still to
+pass, we counted our turnings with a desperate exactness, intent
+only on one thing--to reach Louis de Pavannes, to reach the house
+opposite to the Head of Erasmus, as quickly as we could.  We
+presently entered a long, narrow street.  At the end of it the
+river was visible gleaming and sparkling in the sunlight.  The
+street was quiet; quiet and empty.  There was no living soul to
+be seen from end to end of it, only a prowling dog.  The noise of
+the tumult raging in other parts was softened here by distance
+and the intervening houses.  We seemed to be able to breathe more
+freely.
+
+"This should be our street," said Croisette.
+
+I nodded.  At the same moment I espied, half-way down it, the
+sign we needed and pointed to it, But ah!  were we in time?  Or
+too late?  That was the question.  By a single impulse we broke
+into a run, and shot down the roadway at speed.  A few yards
+short of the Head of Erasmus we came, one by one, Croisette
+first, to a full stop.  A full stop!
+
+The house opposite the bookseller's was sacked!  gutted from top
+to bottom.  It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street,
+and every window in it was broken.  The door hung forlornly on
+one hinge, glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe
+had splintered it.  Fragments of glass and ware, hung out and
+shattered in sheer wantonness, strewed the steps:  and down one
+corner of the latter a dark red stream trickled--to curdle by and
+by in the gutter.  Whence came the stream?  Alas!  there was
+something more to be seen yet, something our eyes instinctively
+sought last of all.  The body of a man.
+
+It lay on the threshold, the head hanging back, the wide glazed
+eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat
+would soon pour down upon it.  We looked shuddering at the face.
+It was that of a servant, a valet who had been with Louis at
+Caylus.  We recognised him at once for we had known and liked
+him.  He had carried our guns on the hills a dozen times, and
+told us stories of the war.  The blood crawled slowly from him.
+He was dead.
+
+Croisette began to shake all over.  He clutched one of the
+pillars, which bore up the porch, and pressed his face against
+its cold surface, hiding his eyes from the sight.  The worst had
+come.  In our hearts I think we had always fancied some accident
+would save our friend, some stranger warn him.
+
+"Oh, poor, poor Kit!"  Croisette cried, bursting suddenly into
+violent sobs.  "Oh, Kit!  Kit!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+HAU, HAU, HUGUENOTS!
+
+His late Majesty, Henry the Fourth, I remember--than whom no
+braver man wore sword, who loved danger indeed for its own sake,
+and courted it as a mistress--could never sleep on the night
+before an action.  I have heard him say himself that it was so
+before the fight at Arques.  Croisette partook of this nature
+too, being high-strung and apt to be easily over-wrought, but
+never until the necessity for exertion had passed away:  while
+Marie and I, though not a whit stouter at a pinch, were slower to
+feel and less easy to move--more Germanic in fact.
+
+I name this here partly lest it should be thought after what I
+have just told of Croisette that there was anything of the woman
+about him--save the tenderness; and partly to show that we acted
+at this crisis each after his manner.  While Croisette turned
+pale and trembled, and hid his eyes, I stood dazed, looking from
+the desolate house to the face stiffening in the sunshine, and
+back again; wondering, though I had seen scores of dead faces
+since daybreak, and a plenitude of suffering in all dreadful
+shapes, how Providence could let this happen to us.  To us!  In
+his instincts man is as selfish as any animal that lives.
+
+I saw nothing indeed of the dead face and dead house after the
+first convincing glance.  I saw instead with hot, hot eyes the
+old castle at home, the green fields about the brook, and the
+grey hills rising from them; and the terrace, and Kit coming to
+meet us, Kit with white face and parted lips and avid eyes that
+questioned us!  And we with no comfort to give her, no lover to
+bring back to her!
+
+A faint noise behind as of a sign creaking in the wind, roused me
+from this most painful reverie.  I turned round, not quickly or
+in surprise or fear.  Rather in the same dull wonder.  The upper
+part of the bookseller's door was ajar.  It was that I had heard
+opened.  An old woman was peering out at us.
+
+As our eyes met, she made a slight movement to close the door
+again.  But I did not stir, and seeming to be reassured by a
+second glance, she nodded to me in a stealthy fashion.  I drew a
+step nearer, listlessly.  "Pst!  Pst!"  she whispered.  Her
+wrinkled old face, which was like a Normandy apple long kept, was
+soft with pity as she looked at Croisette.  "Pst!"
+
+"Well!"  I said, mechanically.
+
+"Is he taken?"  she muttered.
+
+"Who taken?"  I asked stupidly.
+
+She nodded towards the forsaken house, and answered, "The young
+lord who lodged there?  Ah!  sirs," she continued, "he looked gay
+and handsome, if you'll believe me, as he came from the king's
+court yester even!  As bonny a sight in his satin coat, and his
+ribbons, as my eyes ever saw!  And to think that they should be
+hunting him like a rat to-day!"
+
+The woman's words were few and simple.  But what a change they
+made in my world!  How my heart awoke from its stupor, and leapt
+up with a new joy and a new-born hope!  "Did he get away?"  I
+cried eagerly.  "Did he escape, mother, then?"
+
+"Ay, that he did!"  she replied quickly.  "That poor fellow,
+yonder--he lies quiet enough now God forgive him his heresy, say
+I!--kept the door manfully while the gentleman got on the roof,
+and ran right down the street on the tops of the houses, with
+them firing and hooting at him:  for all the world as if he had
+been a squirrel and they a pack of boys with stones!"
+
+"And he escaped?"
+
+"Escaped!"  she answered more slowly, shaking her old head in
+doubt.  "I do not know about that I fear they have got him by
+now, gentlemen.  I have been shivering and shaking up stairs with
+my husband--he is in bed, good man, and the safest place for him
+--the saints have mercy upon us!  But I heard them go with their
+shouting and gunpowder right along to the river, and I doubt they
+will take him between this and the CHATELET!  I doubt they will."
+
+"How long ago was it, dame?"  I cried.
+
+"Oh!  may be half an hour.  Perhaps you are friends of his?"  she
+added questioningly.
+
+But I did not stay to answer her.  I shook Croisette, who had not
+heard a word of this, by the shoulder. "There is a chance that he
+has escaped!"  I cried in his ear.  "Escaped, do you hear?"  And I
+told him hastily what she had said.
+
+It was fine, indeed, and a sight, to see the blood rush to his
+cheeks, and the tears dry in his eyes, and energy and decision
+spring to life in every nerve and muscle of his face, "Then there
+is hope?"  he cried, grasping my arm.  "Hope, Anne!  Come!  Come!
+Do not let us lose another instant.  If he be alive let us join
+him!"
+
+The old woman tried to detain us, but in vain.  Nay, pitying us,
+and fearing, I think, that we were rushing on our deaths, she
+cast aside her caution, and called after us aloud.  We took no
+heed, running after Croisette, who had not waited for our answer,
+as fast as young limbs could carry us down the street.  The
+exhaustion we had felt a moment before when all seemed lost be it
+remembered that we had not been to bed or tasted food for many
+hours--fell from us on the instant, and was clean gone and
+forgotten in the joy of this respite.  Louis was living and for
+the moment had escaped.
+
+Escaped!  But for how long?  We soon had our answer.  The moment
+we turned the corner by the river-side, the murmur of a multitude
+not loud but continuous, struck our ears, even as the breeze off
+the water swept our cheeks.  Across the river lay the thousand
+roofs of the Ile de la Cite, all sparkling in the sunshine.  But
+we swept to the right, thinking little of THAT sight, and checked
+our speed on finding ourselves on the skirts of the crowd.
+Before us was a bridge--the Pont au Change, I think--and at its
+head on our side of the water stood the CHATELET, with its hoary
+turrets and battlements.  Between us and the latter, and backed
+only by the river, was a great open space half-filled with
+people, mostly silent and watchful, come together as to a show,
+and betraying, at present at least, no desire to take an active
+part in what was going on.
+
+We hurriedly plunged into the throng, and soon caught the clue to
+the quietness and the lack of movement which seemed to prevail,
+and which at first sight had puzzled us.  For a moment the
+absence of the dreadful symptoms we had come to know so well--the
+flying and pursuing, the random blows, the shrieks and curses and
+batterings on doors, the tipsy yells, had reassured us.  But the
+relief was short-lived.  The people before us were under control.
+A tighter grip seemed to close upon our hearts as we discerned
+this, for we knew that the wild fury of the populace, like the
+rush of a bull, might have given some chance of escape--in this
+case as in others.  But this cold-blooded ordered search left
+none.
+
+Every face about us was turned in the same direction; away from
+the river and towards a block of old houses which stood opposite
+to it.  The space immediately in front of these was empty, the
+people being kept back by a score or so of archers of the guard
+set at intervals, and by as many horsemen, who kept riding up and
+down, belabouring the bolder spirits with the flat of their
+swords, and so preserving a line.  At each extremity of this--more
+noticeably on our left where the line curved round the angle of
+the buildings--stood a handful of riders, seven in a group
+perhaps.  And alone in the middle of the space so kept clear,
+walking his horse up and down and gazing at the houses rode a man
+of great stature, booted and armed, the feather nodding in his
+bonnet.  I could not see his face, but I had no need to see it.
+I knew him, and groaned aloud.  It was Bezers!
+
+I understood the scene better now.  The horsemen, stern, bearded
+Switzers for the most part, who eyed the rabble about them with
+grim disdain, and were by no means chary of their blows, were all
+in his colours and armed to the teeth.  The order and discipline
+were of his making:  the revenge of his seeking.  A grasp as of
+steel had settled upon our friend, and I felt that his last
+chance was gone.  Louis de Pavannes might as well be lying on his
+threshold with his dead servant by his side, as be in hiding
+within that ring of ordered swords.
+
+It was with despairing eyes we looked at the old wooden houses.
+They seemed to be bowing themselves towards us, their upper
+stories projected so far, they were so decrepit.  Their roofs
+were a wilderness of gutters and crooked gables, of tottering
+chimneys and wooden pinnacles and rotting beams, Amongst these I
+judged Kit's lover was hiding.  Well, it was a good place for
+hide and seek--with any other player than DEATH.  In the ground
+floors of the houses there were no windows and no doors; by
+reason, I learned afterwards, of the frequent flooding of the
+river.  But a long wooden gallery raised on struts ran along the
+front, rather more than the height of a man from the ground, and
+access to this was gained by a wooden staircase at each end.
+Above this first gallery was a second, and above that a line of
+windows set between the gables.  The block--it may have run for
+seventy or eighty yards along the shore--contained four houses,
+each with a door opening on to the lower gallery.  I saw indeed
+that but for the Vidame's precautions Louis might well have
+escaped.  Had the mob once poured helter-skelter into that
+labyrinth of rooms and passages he might with luck have mingled
+with them, unheeded and unrecognized, and effected his escape
+when they retreated.
+
+But now there were sentries on each gallery and more on the roof.
+Whenever one of the latter moved or seemed to be looking inward--
+where a search party, I understood, were at work--indeed, if he
+did but turn his head, a thrill ran through the crowd and a
+murmur arose, which once or twice swelled to a savage roar such
+as earlier had made me tremble.  When this happened the impulse
+came, it seemed to me, from the farther end of the line.  There
+the rougher elements were collected, and there I more than once
+saw Bezers' troopers in conflict with the mob.  In that quarter
+too a savage chant was presently struck up, the whole gathering
+joining in and yelling with an indescribably appalling effect:
+
+  "Hau!  Hau!  Huguenots!
+   Faites place aux Papegots!"
+
+in derision of the old song said to be popular amongst the
+Protestants.  But in the Huguenot version the last words were of
+course transposed.
+
+We had worked our way by this time to the front of the line, and
+looking into one another's eyes, mutely asked a question; but not
+even Croisette had an answer ready.  There could be no answer but
+one.  What could we do?  Nothing.  We were too late.  Too late
+again!  And yet how dreadful it was to stand still among the
+cruel, thoughtless mob and see our friend, the touch of whose
+hand we knew so well, done to death for their sport!  Done to
+death as the old woman had said like any rat, not a soul save
+ourselves pitying him!  Not a soul to turn sick at his cry of
+agony, or shudder at the glance of his dying eyes.  It was
+dreadful indeed.
+
+"Ah, well," muttered a woman beside me to her companion--there
+were many women in the crowd--"it is down with the Huguenots, say
+I!  It is Lorraine is the fine man!  But after all yon is a bonny
+fellow and a proper, Margot!  I saw him leap from roof to roof
+over Love Lane, as if the blessed saints had carried him. And him
+a heretic!"
+
+"It is the black art," the other answered, crossing herself.
+
+"Maybe it is!  But he will need it all to give that big man the
+slip to-day," replied the first speaker comfortably.
+
+"That devil!"  Margot exclaimed, pointing with a stealthy gesture
+of hate at the Vidame.  And then in a fierce whisper, with
+inarticulate threats, she told a story of him, which made me
+shudder.  "He did!  And she in religion too!"  she concluded.
+"May our Lady of Loretto reward him."
+
+The tale might be true for aught I knew, horrible as it was!  I
+had heard similar ones attributing things almost as fiendish to
+him, times and again; from that poor fellow lying dead on
+Pavannes' doorstep for one, and from others besides.  As the
+Vidame in his pacing to and fro turned towards us, I gazed at him
+fascinated by his grim visage and that story.  His eye rested on
+the crowd about us, and I trembled, lest even at that distance he
+should recognise us.
+
+And he did!  I had forgotten his keenness of sight.  His face
+flashed suddenly into a grim smile.  The tail of his eye resting
+upon us, and seeming to forbid us to move, he gave some orders.
+The colour fled from my face.  To escape indeed was impossible,
+for we were hemmed in by the press and could scarcely stir a
+limb.  Yet I did make one effort.
+
+"Croisette!"  I muttered he was the rearmost--"stoop down.  He
+may not have seen you.  Stoop down, lad!"
+
+But St. Croix was obstinate and would not stoop.  Nay, when one
+of the mounted men came, and roughly ordered us into the open, it
+was Croisette who pushing past us stepped out first with a lordly
+air.  I, following him, saw that his lips were firmly compressed
+and that there was an eager light in his eyes.  As we emerged,
+the crowd in our wake broke the line, and tried to pursue us;
+either hostilely or through eagerness to see what it meant.  But
+a dozen blows of the long pikes drove them back, howling and
+cursing to their places.
+
+I expected to be taken to Bezers; and what would follow I could
+not tell.  But he did always it seemed what we least expected,
+for he only scowled at us now, a grim mockery on his lip, and
+cried, "See that they do not escape again!  But do them no harm,
+sirrah, until I have the batch of them!"
+
+He turned one way, and I another, my heart swelling with rage.
+Would he dare to harm us?  Would even the Vidame dare to murder a
+Caylus' nephew openly and in cold blood?  I did not think so.
+And yet--and yet--
+
+Croisette interrupted the train of my thoughts.  I found that he
+was not following me.  He had sprung away, and in a dozen strides
+reached the Vidame's stirrup, and was clasping his knee when I
+turned.  I could not hear at the distance at which I stood, what
+he said, and the horseman to whom Bezers had committed us spurred
+between us.  But I heard the Vidame's answer.
+
+"No!  no!  no!"  he cried with a ring of restrained fury in his
+voice.  "Let my plans alone!  What do you know of them?  And if
+you speak to me again, M. St. Croix--I think that is your name,
+boy--I will--no, I will not kill you.  That might please you, you
+are stubborn, I can see.  But I will have you stripped and lashed
+like the meanest of my scullions!  Now go, and take care!"
+
+Impatience, hate and wild passion flamed in his face for the
+moment--transfiguring it.  Croisette came back to us slowly,
+white-lipped and quiet.  "Never mind," I said bitterly.  "The
+third time may bring luck."
+
+Not that I felt much indignation at the Vidame's insult, or any
+anger with the lad for incurring it; as I had felt on that other
+occasion.  Life and death seemed to be everything on this
+morning.  Words had ceased to please and annoy, for what are
+words to the sheep in the shambles?  One man's life and one
+woman's happiness outside ourselves we thought only of these now.
+And some day I reflected Croisette might remember even with
+pleasure that he had, as a drowning man clutching at straws,
+stooped to a last prayer for them.
+
+We were placed in the middle of a knot of troopers who closed the
+line to the right.  And presently Marie touched me.  He was
+gazing intently at the sentry on the roof of the third house from
+us; the farthest but one.  The man's back was to the parapet, and
+he was gesticulating wildly.
+
+"He sees him!"  Marie muttered.
+
+I nodded almost in apathy.  But this passed away, and I started
+involuntarily and shuddered, as a savage roar, breaking the
+silence, rang along the front of the mob like a rolling volley of
+firearms.  What was it?  A man posted at a window on the upper
+gallery had dropped his pike's point, and was levelling it at
+some one inside:  we could see no more.
+
+But those in front of the window could; they saw too much for the
+Vidame's precautions, as a moment showed.  He had not laid his
+account with the frenzy of a rabble, the passions of a mob which
+had tasted blood.  I saw the line at its farther end waver
+suddenly and toss to and fro.  Then a hundred hands went up, and
+confused angry cries rose with them.  The troopers struck about
+them, giving back slowly as they did so.  But their efforts were
+in vain.  With a scream of triumph a wild torrent of people broke
+through between them, leaving them stranded; and rushed in a
+headlong cataract towards the steps.  Bezers was close to us at
+the time.  "S'death!"  he cried, swearing oaths which even his
+sovereign could scarce have equalled.  "They will snatch him from
+me yet, the hell-hounds!"
+
+He whirled his horse round and spurred him in a dozen bounds to
+the stairs at our end of the gallery.  There he leaped from him,
+dropping the bridle recklessly; and bounding up three steps at a
+time, he ran along the gallery.  Half-a-dozen of the troopers
+about us stayed only to fling their reins to one of their number,
+and then followed, their great boots clattering on the planks.
+
+My breath came fast and short, for I felt it was a crisis.  It
+was a race between the two parties, or rather between the Vidame
+and the leaders of the mob.  The latter had the shorter way to
+go.  But on the narrow steps they were carried off their feet by
+the press behind them, and fell over and hampered one another and
+lost time.  The Vidame, free from this drawback, was some way
+along the gallery before they had set foot on it.
+
+How I prayed--amid a scene of the wildest uproar and excitement--
+that the mob might be first!  Let there be only a short conflict
+between Bezers' men and the people, and in the confusion Pavannes
+might yet escape.  Hope awoke in the turmoil.  Above the yells of
+the crowd a score of deep voices about me thundered "a Wolf!  a
+Wolf!"  And I too, lost my head, and drew my sword, and screamed
+at the top of my voice, "a Caylus!  a Caylus!"  with the maddest.
+
+Thousands of eyes besides mine were strained on the foremost
+figures on either side.  They met as it chanced precisely at the
+door of the house.  The mob leader was a slender man, I saw; a
+priest apparently, though now he was girt with unpriestly
+weapons, his skirts were tucked up, and his head was bare.  So
+much my first glance showed me.  It was at the second look it was
+when I saw the blood forsake his pale lowering face and leave it
+whiter than ever, when horror sprang along with recognition to
+his eyes, when borne along by the crowd behind he saw his
+position and who was before him--it was only then when his mean
+figure shrank, and he quailed and would have turned but could
+not, that I recognized the Coadjutor.
+
+I was silent now, my mouth agape.  There are seconds which are
+minutes; ay, and many minutes.  A man may die, a man may come
+into life in such a second.  In one of these, it seemed to me,
+those two men paused, face to face; though in fact a pause was
+for one of them impossible.  He was between--and I think he knew
+it--the devil and the deep sea.  Yet he seemed to pause, while
+all, even that yelling crowd below, held their breath.  The next
+moment, glaring askance at one another like two dogs unevenly
+coupled, he and Bezers shot shoulder to shoulder into the
+doorway, and in another jot of time would have been out of sight.
+But then, in that instant, I saw something happen.  The Vidame's
+hand flashed up above the priest's head, and the cross-hilt of
+his sheathed sword crashed down with awful force, and still more
+awful passion, on the other's tonsure!  The wretch went down like
+a log, without a word, without a cry!  Amid a roar of rage from a
+thousand throats, a roar that might have shaken the stoutest
+heart, and blanched the swarthiest cheek, Bezers disappeared
+within!
+
+It was then I saw the power of discipline and custom.  Few as
+were the troopers who had followed him--a mere handful--they fell
+without hesitation on the foremost of the crowd, who were already
+in confusion, stumbling and falling over their leader's body; and
+hurled them back pell-mell along the gallery.  The throng below
+had no firearms, and could give no aid at the moment; the stage
+was narrow; in two minutes the Vidame's people had swept it clear
+of the crowd and were in possession of it.  A tall fellow took up
+the priest's body, dead or alive, I do not know which, and flung
+it as if it had been a sack of corn over the rail.  It fell with
+a heavy thud on the ground.  I heard a piercing scream that rose
+above that babel--one shrill scream!  and the mob closed round
+and hid the thing.
+
+If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand
+stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers' men who had
+kept their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of
+us, encumbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could
+have attacked the handful on the gallery on both flanks.  But the
+mob had no leaders, and no plan of operations.  They seized
+indeed two or three of the scattered troopers, and tearing them
+from their horses, wreaked their passion upon them horribly.  But
+most of the Switzers escaped, thanks to the attention the mob
+paid to the houses and what was going forward on the galleries;
+and these, extricating themselves joined us one by one, so that
+gradually a little ring of stern faces gathered about the stair-
+foot.  A moment's hesitation, and seeing no help for it, we
+ranged ourselves with them; and, unchecked as unbidden, sprang on
+three of the led horses.
+
+All this passed more quickly than I can relate it:  so that
+before our feet were well in the stirrups a partial silence, then
+a mightier roar of anger at once proclaimed and hailed the re-
+appearance of the Vidame.  Bigoted beyond belief were the mob of
+Paris of that day, cruel, vengeful, and always athirst for blood;
+and this man had killed not only their leader but a priest.  He
+had committed sacrilege!  What would they do?  I could just, by
+stooping forward, command a side view of the gallery, and the
+scene passing there was such that I forgot in it our own peril.
+
+For surely in all his reckless life Bezers had never been so
+emphatically the man for the situation--had never shown to such
+advantage as at this moment when he stood confronting the sea of
+faces, the sneer on his lip, a smile in his eyes; and looked down
+unblenching, a figure of scorn, on the men who were literally
+agape for his life.  The calm defiance of his steadfast look
+fascinated even me.  Wonder and admiration for the time took the
+place of dislike.  I could scarcely believe that there was not
+some atom of good in this man so fearless.  And no face but one
+no face I think in the world, but one--could have drawn my eyes
+from him.  But that one face was beside him.  I clutched Marie's
+arm, and pointed to the bareheaded figure at Bezers' right hand.
+
+It was Louis himself:  our Louis de Pavannes, But he was changed
+indeed from the gay cavalier I remembered, and whom I had last
+seen riding down the street at Caylus, smiling back at us, and
+waving his adieux to his mistress!  Beside the Vidame he had the
+air of being slight, even short.  The face which I had known so
+bright and winning, was now white and set.  His fair, curling
+hair--scarce darker than Croisette's--hung dank, bedabbled with
+blood which flowed from a wound in his head.  His sword was gone;
+his dress was torn and disordered and covered with dust.  His
+lips moved.  But he held up his head, he bore himself bravely
+with it all; so bravely, that I choked, and my heart seemed
+bursting as I looked at him standing there forlorn and now
+unarmed.  I knew that Kit seeing him thus would gladly have died
+with him; and I thanked God she did not see him.  Yet there was a
+quietness in his fortitude which made a great difference between
+his air and that of Bezers.  He lacked, as became one looking
+unarmed on certain death, the sneer and smile of the giant beside
+him.
+
+What was the Vidame about to do?  I shuddered as I asked myself.
+Not surrender him, not fling him bodily to the people?  No not
+that:  I felt sure he would let no others share his vengeance
+that his pride would not suffer that.  And even while I wondered
+the doubt was solved.  I saw Bezers raise his hand in a peculiar
+fashion.  Simultaneously a cry rang sharply out above the tumult,
+and down in headlong charge towards the farther steps came the
+band of horsemen, who had got clear of the crowd on that side.
+They were but ten or twelve, but under his eye they charged, as
+if they had been a thousand.  The rabble shrank from the
+collision, and fled aside.  Quick as thought the riders swerved;
+and changing their course, galloped through the looser part of
+the throng, and in a trice drew rein side by side with us, a
+laugh and a jeer on their reckless lips.
+
+It was neatly done:  and while it was being done the Vidame and
+his knot of men, with those who had been searching the building,
+hurried down the gallery towards us, their rear cleared for the
+moment by the troopers' feint.  The dismounted men came bundling
+down the steps, their eyes aglow with the war-fire, and got
+horses as they could.  Among them I lost sight of Louis, but
+perceived him presently, pale and bewildered, mounted behind a
+trooper.  A man sprang up before each of us too, greeting our
+appearance merely by a grunt of surprise.  For it was no time to
+ask or answer.  The mob was recovering itself, and each moment
+brought it reinforcements, while its fury was augmented by the
+trick we had played it, and the prospect of our escape.
+
+We were under forty, all told; and some men were riding double.
+Bezers' eye glanced hastily over his array, and lit on us three.
+He turned and gave some order to his lieutenant.  The fellow
+spurred his horse, a splendid grey, as powerful as his master's,
+alongside of Croisette, threw his arm round the lad, and dragged
+him dexterously on to his own crupper.  I did not understand the
+action, but I saw Croisette settle himself behind Blaise Bure--
+for he it was--and supposed no harm was intended.  The next
+moment we had surged forward, and were swaying to and fro in the
+midst of the crowd.
+
+What ensued I cannot tell.  The outlook, so far as I was
+concerned, was limited to wildly plunging horses--we were in the
+centre of the band and riders swaying in the saddle--with a
+glimpse here and there of a fringe of white scowling faces and
+tossing arms.  Once, a lane opening, I saw the Vidame's charger
+--he was in the van--stumble and fall among the crowd and heard a
+great shout go up.  But Bezers by a mighty effort lifted it to
+its legs again.  And once too, a minute later, those riding on my
+right, swerved outwards, and I saw something I never afterwards
+forgot.
+
+It was the body of the Coadjutor, lying face upwards, the eyes
+open and the teeth bared in a last spasm.  Prostrate on it lay a
+woman, a young woman, with hair like red gold falling about her
+neck, and skin like milk.  I did not know whether she was alive
+or dead; but I noticed that one arm stuck out stiffly and the
+crowd flying before the sudden impact of the horses must have
+passed over her, even if she had escaped the iron hoofs which
+followed.  Still in the fleeting glance I had of her as my horse
+bounded aside, I saw no wound or disfigurement.  Her one arm was
+cast about the priest's breast; her face was hidden on it.  But
+for all that, I knew her--knew her, shuddering for the woman
+whose badges I was even now wearing, whose gift I bore at my
+side; and I remembered the priest's vaunt of a few hours before,
+made in her presence, "There is no man in Paris shall thwart me
+to-night!"
+
+It had been a vain boast indeed!  No hand in all that host of
+thousands was more feeble than his now:  for good or ill!  No
+brain more dull, no voice less heeded.  A righteous retribution
+indeed had overtaken him.  He had died by the sword he had drawn
+--died, a priest, by violence!  The cross he had renounced had
+crushed him.  And all his schemes and thoughts, and no doubt they
+had been many, had perished with him.  It had come to this, only
+this, the sum of the whole matter, that there was one wicked man
+the less in Paris--one lump of breathless clay the more.
+
+For her--the woman on his breast--what man can judge a woman,
+knowing her?  And not knowing her, how much less?  For the
+present I put her out of my mind, feeling for the moment faint
+and cold.
+
+We were clear of the crowd, and clattering unmolested down a
+paved street before I fully recovered from the shock which this
+sight had caused me.  Wonder whither we were going took its
+place.  To Bezers' house?  My heart sank at the prospect if that
+were so.  Before I thought of an alternative, a gateway flanked
+by huge round towers appeared before us, and we pulled up
+suddenly, a confused jostling mass in the narrow way; while some
+words passed between the Vidame and the Captain of the Guard.  A
+pause of several minutes followed; and then the gates rolled
+slowly open, and two by two we passed under the arch.  Those
+gates might have belonged to a fortress or a prison, a dungeon or
+a palace, for all I knew.
+
+They led, however, to none of these, but to an open space, dirty
+and littered with rubbish, marked by a hundred ruts and tracks,
+and fringed with disorderly cabins and make-shift booths.  And
+beyond this--oh, ye gods!  the joy of it--beyond this, which we
+crossed at a rapid trot, lay the open country!
+
+The transition and relief were so wonderful that I shall never
+forget them.  I gazed on the wide landscape before me, lying
+quiet and peaceful in the sunlight, and could scarce believe in
+my happiness.  I drew the fresh air into my lungs, I threw up my
+sheathed sword and caught it again in a frenzy of delight, while
+the gloomy men about me smiled at my enthusiasm.  I felt the
+horse beneath me move once more like a thing of life.  No
+enchanter with his wand, not Merlin nor Virgil, could have made a
+greater change in my world, than had the captain of the gate with
+his simple key!  Or so it seemed to me in the first moments of
+freedom, and escape--of removal from those loathsome streets.
+
+I looked back at Paris--at the cloud of smoke which hung over the
+towers and roofs; and it seemed to me the canopy of hell itself.
+I fancied that my head still rang with the cries and screams and
+curses, the sounds of death.  In very fact, I could hear the dull
+reports of firearms near the Louvre, and the jangle of the bells.
+Country-folk were congregated at the cross-roads, and in the
+villages, listening and gazing; asking timid questions of the
+more good-natured among us, and showing that the rumour of the
+dreadful work doing in the town had somehow spread abroad.  And
+this though I learned afterwards that the keys of the city had
+been taken the night before to the king, and that, except a party
+with the Duke of Guise, who had left at eight in pursuit of
+Montgomery and some of the Protestants--lodgers, happily for
+themselves, in the Faubourg St. Germain--no one had left the town
+before ourselves.
+
+While I am speaking of our departure from Paris, I may say what I
+have to say of the dreadful excesses of those days, ay, and of
+the following days; excesses of which France is now ashamed, and
+for which she blushed even before the accession of his late
+Majesty.  I am sometimes asked, as one who witnessed them, what I
+think, and I answer that it was not our country which was to
+blame.  A something besides Queen Catharine de' Medici had been
+brought from Italy forty years before, a something invisible but
+very powerful; a spirit of cruelty and treachery.  In Italy it
+had done small harm.  But grafted on French daring and
+recklessness, and the rougher and more soldierly manners of the
+north, this spirit of intrigue proved capable of very dreadful
+things.  For a time, until it wore itself out, it was the curse
+of France.  Two Dukes of Guise, Francis and Henry, a cardinal of
+Guise, the Prince of Conde, Admiral Coligny, King Henry the Third
+all these the foremost men of their day--died by assassination
+within little more than a quarter of a century, to say nothing of
+the Prince of Orange, and King Henry the Great.
+
+Then mark--a most curious thing--the extreme youth of those who
+were in this business.  France, subject to the Queen-Mother, of
+course, was ruled at the time by boys scarce out of their tutors'
+hands.  They were mere lads, hot-blooded, reckless nobles, ready
+for any wild brawl, without forethought or prudence.  Of the four
+Frenchmen who it is thought took the leading parts, one, the
+king, was twenty-two; Monsieur, his brother, was only twenty; the
+Duke of Guise was twenty-one.  Only the Marshal de Tavannes was
+of mature age.  For the other conspirators, for the Queen-Mother,
+for her advisers Retz and Nevers and Birague, they were Italians;
+and Italy may answer for them if Florence, Mantua and Milan care
+to raise the glove.
+
+To return to our journey.  A league from the town we halted at a
+large inn, and some of us dismounted.  Horses were brought out to
+fill the places of those lost or left behind, and Bure had food
+served to us.  We were famished and exhausted, and ate it
+ravenously, as if we could never have enough.
+
+The Vidame sat his horse apart, served by his page, I stole a
+glance at him, and it struck me that even on his iron nature the
+events of the night had made some impression.  I read, or thought
+I read, in his countenance, signs of emotions not quite in
+accordance with what I knew of him--emotions strange and varied.
+I could almost have sworn that as he looked at us a flicker of
+kindliness lit up his stern and cruel gloom; I could almost have
+sworn he smiled with a curious sadness.  As for Louis, riding
+with a squad who stood in a different part of the yard, he did
+not see us; had not yet seen us at all.  His side face, turned
+towards me, was pale and sad, his manner preoccupied, his mien
+rather sorrowful than downcast.  He was thinking, I judged, as
+much of the many brave men who had yesterday been his friends--
+companions at board and play-table--as of his own fate.  When we
+presently, at a signal from Bure, took to the road again, I asked
+no permission, but thrusting my horse forward, rode to his side
+as he passed through the gateway.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A NIGHT OF SORROW.
+
+"Louis!  Louis!"
+
+He turned with a start at the sound of my voice, joy and
+bewilderment--and no wonder--in his countenance.  He had not
+supposed us to be within a hundred leagues of him.  And lo!  here
+we were, knee to knee, hand meeting hand in a long grasp, while
+his eyes, to which tears sprang unbidden, dwelt on my face as
+though they could read in it the features of his sweetheart.
+Some one had furnished him with a hat, and enabled him to put his
+dress in order, and wash his wound, which was very slight, and
+these changes had improved his appearance; so that the shadow of
+grief and despondency passing for a moment from him in the joy of
+seeing me, he looked once more his former self:  as he had looked
+in the old days at Caylus on his return from hawking, or from
+some boyish escapade among the hills.  Only, alas!  he wore no
+sword.
+
+"And now tell me all," he cried, after his first exclamation of
+wonder had found vent.  "How on earth do you come here?  Here, of
+all places, and by my side?  Is all well at Caylus?  Surely
+Mademoiselle is not--"
+
+"Mademoiselle is well!  perfectly well!  And thinking of you, I
+swear!"  I answered passionately.  "For us," I went on, eager for
+the moment to escape that subject--how could I talk of it in the
+daylight and under strange eyes?--"Marie and Croisette are
+behind.  We left Caylus eight days ago.  We reached Paris
+yesterday evening.  We have not been to bed!  We have passed,
+Louis, such a night as I never--"
+
+He stopped me with a gesture.  "Hush!"  he said, raising his
+hand. "Don't speak of it, Anne!"  and I saw that the fate of his
+friends was still too recent, the horror of his awakening to
+those dreadful sights and sounds was still too vivid for him to
+bear reference to them.  Yet after riding for a time in silence--
+though his lips moved--he asked me again what had brought us up.
+
+"We came to warn you--of him," I answered, pointing to the
+solitary, moody figure of the Vidame, who was riding ahead of the
+party.  "He--he said that Kit should never marry you, and
+boasted of what he would do to you, and frightened her.  So,
+learning he was going to Paris, we followed him--to put you on
+your guard, you know."  And I briefly sketched our adventures,
+and the strange circumstances and mistakes which had delayed us
+hour after hour, through all that strange night, until the time
+had gone by when we could do good.
+
+His eyes glistened and his colour rose as I told the story.  He
+wrung my hand warmly, and looked back to smile at Marie and
+Croisette.  "It was like you!"  he ejaculated with emotion.  "It
+was like her cousins!  Brave, brave lads!  The Vicomte will live
+to be proud of you!  Some day you will all do great things!  I
+say it!"
+
+"But oh, Louis!"  I exclaimed sorrowfully, though my heart was
+bounding with pride at his words, "if we had only been in time!
+If we had only come to you two hours earlier!"
+
+"You would have spoken to little purpose then, I fear," he
+replied, shaking his head.  "We were given over as a prey to the
+enemy.  Warnings?  We had warnings in plenty.  De Rosny warned
+us, and we scoffed at him.  The king's eye warned us, and we
+trusted him.  But--" and Louis' form dilated and his hand rose as
+he went on, and I thought of his cousin's prediction--"it will
+never be so again in France, Anne!  Never!  No man will after
+this trust another!  There will be no honour, no faith, no
+quarter, and no peace!  And for the Valois who has done this, the
+sword will never depart from his house!  I believe it!  I do
+believe it!"
+
+How truly he spoke we know now.  For two-and-twenty years after
+that twenty-fourth of August, 1572, the sword was scarcely laid
+aside in France for a single month.  In the streets of Paris, at
+Arques, and Coutras, and Ivry, blood flowed like water that the
+blood of the St. Bartholomew might be forgotten--that blood
+which, by the grace of God, Navarre saw fall from the dice box on
+the eve of the massacre.  The last of the Valois passed to the
+vaults of St. Denis:  and a greater king, the first of all
+Frenchmen, alive or dead, the bravest, gayest, wisest of the
+land, succeeded him:  yet even he had to fall by the knife, in a
+moment most unhappy for his country, before France, horror-
+stricken, put away the treachery and evil from her.
+
+Talking with Louis as we rode, it was not unnatural--nay, it was
+the natural result of the situation--that I should avoid one
+subject.  Yet that subject was the uppermost in my thoughts.
+What were the Vidame's intentions?  What was the meaning of this
+strange journey?  What was to be Louis' fate?  I shrank with good
+reason from asking him these questions.  There could be so little
+room for hope, even after that smile which I had seen Bezers
+smile, that I dared not dwell upon them.  I should but torture
+him and myself.
+
+So it was he who first spoke about it.  Not at that time, but
+after sunset, when the dusk had fallen upon us, and found us
+still plodding southward with tired horses; a link outwardly like
+other links in the long chain of riders, toiling onwards.  Then
+he said suddenly, "Do you know whither we are going, Anne?"
+
+I started, and found myself struggling with a strange confusion
+before I could reply.  "Home," I suggested at random.
+
+"Home?  No.  And yet nearly home.  To Cahors," he answered with
+an odd quietude.  "Your home, my boy, I shall never see again,
+Nor Kit!  Nor my own Kit!"  It was the first time I had heard him
+call her by the fond name we used ourselves.  And the pathos in
+his tone as of the past, not the present, as of pure memory--I
+was very thankful that I could not in the dusk see his face
+--shook my self-control.  I wept.  "Nay, my lad," he went on,
+speaking softly and leaning from his saddle so that he could lay
+his hand on my shoulder "we are all men together.  We must be
+brave.  Tears cannot help us, so we should leave them to the--
+women."
+
+I cried more passionately at that.  Indeed his own voice quavered
+over the last word.  But in a moment he was talking to me coolly
+and quietly.  I had muttered something to the effect that the
+Vidame would not dare--it would be too public.
+
+"There is no question of daring in it," he replied.  "And the
+more public it is, the better he will like it.  They have dared
+to take thousands of lives since yesterday.  There is no one to
+call him to account since the king--our king forsooth!--has
+declared every Huguenot an outlaw, to be killed wherever he be
+met with.  No, when Bezers disarmed me yonder," he pointed as he
+spoke to his wound, "I looked of course for instant death.  Anne!
+I saw blood in his eyes!  But he did not strike."
+
+"Why not?"  I asked in suspense.
+
+"I can only guess," Louis answered with a sigh.  "He told me that
+my life was in his hands, but that he should take it at his own
+time.  Further that if I would not give my word to go with him
+without trying to escape, he would throw me to those howling dogs
+outside.  I gave my word.  We are on the road together.  And oh,
+Anne!  yesterday, only yesterday, at this time I was riding home
+with Teligny from the Louvre, where we had been playing at paume
+with the king!  And the world--the world was very fair."
+
+"I saw you, or rather Croisette did," I muttered as his sorrow--
+not for himself, but his friends--forced him to stop.  "Yet how,
+Louis, do you know that we are going to Cahors?"
+
+"He told me, as we passed through the gates, that he was
+appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy to carry out the edict
+against the religion.  Do you not see, Anne?"  my companion added
+bitterly, "to kill me at once were too small a revenge for him!
+He must torture me--or rather he would if he could--by the pains
+of anticipation.
+
+"Besides, my execution will so finely open his bed of justice.
+Bah!" and Pavannes raised his head proudly, "I fear him not!  I
+fear him not a jot!"
+
+For a moment he forgot Kit, the loss of his friends, his own
+doom.  He snapped his fingers in derision of his foe.
+
+But my heart sank miserably.  The Vidame's rage I remembered had
+been directed rather against my cousin than her lover; and now by
+the light of his threats I read Bezers' purpose more clearly than
+Louis could.  His aim was to punish the woman who had played with
+him.  To do so he was bringing her lover from Paris that he might
+execute him--AFTER GIVING HER NOTICE!  That was it:  after giving
+her notice, it might be in her very presence!  He would lure her
+to Cahors, and then--
+
+I shuddered.  I well might feel that a precipice was opening at
+my feet.  There was something in the plan so devilish, yet so
+accordant with those stories I had heard of the Wolf, that I felt
+no doubt of my insight.  I read his evil mind, and saw in a
+moment why he had troubled himself with us.  He hoped to draw
+Mademoiselle to Cahors by our means.
+
+Of course I said nothing of this to Louis.  I hid my feelings as
+well as I could.  But I vowed a great vow that at the eleventh
+hour we would baulk the Vidame.  Surely if all else failed we
+could kill him, and, though we died ourselves, spare Kit this
+ordeal.  My tears were dried up as by a fire.  My heart burned
+with a great and noble rage:  or so it seemed to me!
+
+I do not think that there was ever any journey so strange as this
+one of ours.  We met with the same incidents which had pleased us
+on the road to Paris.  But their novelty was gone.  Gone too were
+the cosy chats with old rogues of landlords and good-natured
+dames.  We were travelling now in such force that our coming was
+rather a terror to the innkeeper than a boon.  How much the
+Lieutenant-Governor of Quercy, going down to his province,
+requisitioned in the king's name; and for how much he paid, we
+could only judge from the gloomy looks which followed us as we
+rode away each morning.  Such looks were not solely due I fear to
+the news from Paris, although for some time we were the first
+bearers of the tidings.
+
+Presently, on the third day of our journey I think, couriers from
+the Court passed us:  and henceforth forestalled us.  One of
+these messengers--who I learned from the talk about me was bound
+for Cahors with letters for the Lieutenant-Governor and the
+Count-Bishop--the Vidame interviewed and stopped.  How it was
+managed I do not know, but I fear the Count-Bishop never got his
+letters, which I fancy would have given him some joint authority.
+Certainly we left the messenger--a prudent fellow with a care for
+his skin--in comfortable quarters at Limoges, whence I do not
+doubt he presently returned to Paris at his leisure.
+
+The strangeness of the journey however arose from none of these
+things, but from the relations of our party to one another.
+After the first day we four rode together, unmolested, so long as
+we kept near the centre of the straggling cavalcade.  The Vidame
+always rode alone, and in front, brooding with bent head and
+sombre face over his revenge, as I supposed.  He would ride in
+this fashion, speaking to no one and giving no orders, for a day
+together.  At times I came near to pitying him.  He had loved Kit
+in his masterful way, the way of one not wont to be thwarted, and
+he had lost her--lost her, whatever might happen.  He would get
+nothing after all by his revenge.  Nothing but ashes in the
+mouth.  And so I saw in softer moments something inexpressibly
+melancholy in that solitary giant-figure pacing always alone.
+
+He seldom spoke to us.  More rarely to Louis.  When he did, the
+harshness of his voice and his cruel eyes betrayed the gloomy
+hatred in which he held him.  At meals he ate at one end of the
+table:  we four at the other, as three of us had done on that
+first evening in Paris.  And sometimes the covert looks, the grim
+sneer he shot at his rival--his prisoner--made me shiver even in
+the sunshine.  Sometimes, on the other hand, when I took him
+unawares, I found an expression on his face I could not read.
+
+I told Croisette, but warily, my suspicions of his purpose.  He
+heard me, less astounded to all appearance than I had expected.
+Presently I learned the reason.  He had his own view.  "Do you
+not think it possible, Anne?"  he suggested timidly--we were of
+course alone at the time--"that he thinks to make Louis resign
+Mademoiselle?"
+
+"Resign her!"  I exclaimed obtusely.  "How?"
+
+"By giving him a choice--you understand?"
+
+I did understand I saw it in a moment.  I had been dull not to
+see it before.  Bezers might put it in this way:  let M. de
+Pavannes resign his mistress and live, or die and lose her.
+
+"I see," I answered.  "But Louis would not give her up.  Not to
+him!"
+
+"He would lose her either way," Croisette answered in a low tone.
+"That is not however the worst of it.  Louis is in his power.
+Suppose he thinks to make Kit the arbiter, Anne, and puts Louis
+up to ransom, setting Kit for the price?  And gives her the
+option of accepting himself, and saving Louis' life; or refusing,
+and leaving Louis to die?"
+
+"St. Croix!"  I exclaimed fiercely.  "He would not be so base!"
+And yet was not even this better than the blind vengeance I had
+myself attributed to him?
+
+"Perhaps not," Croisette answered, while he gazed onwards through
+the twilight.  We were at the time the foremost of the party save
+the Vidame; and there was nothing to interrupt our view of his
+gigantic figure as he moved on alone before us with bowed
+shoulders.  "Perhaps not," Croisette repeated thoughtfully.
+"Sometimes I think we do not understand him; and that after all
+there may be worse people in the world than Bezers."
+
+I looked hard at the lad, for that was not what I had meant.
+"Worse?"  I said.  "I do not think so.  Hardly!"
+
+"Yes, worse," he replied, shaking his head.  "Do you remember
+lying under the curtain in the box-bed at Mirepoix's?"
+
+"Of course I do!  Do you think I shall ever forget it?"
+
+"And Madame d'O coming in?"
+
+"With the Coadjutor?"  I said with a shudder.  "Yes."
+
+"No, the second time," he answered, "when she came back alone.
+It was pretty dark, you remember, and Madame de Pavannes was at
+the window, and her sister did not see her?"
+
+"Well, well, I remember," I said impatiently.  I knew from the
+tone of his voice that he had something to tell me about Madame
+d'O, and I was not anxious to hear it.  I shrank, as a wounded
+man shrinks from the cautery, from hearing anything about that
+woman; herself so beautiful, yet moving in an atmosphere of
+suspicion and horror.  Was it shame, or fear, or some chivalrous
+feeling having its origin in that moment when I had fancied
+myself her knight?  I am not sure, for I had not made up my mind
+even now whether I ought to pity or detest her; whether she had
+made a tool of me, or I had been false to her.
+
+"She came up to the bed, you remember, Anne?"  Croisette went on.
+"You were next to her.  She saw you indistinctly, and took you
+for her sister.  And then I sprang from the bed."
+
+"I know you did!"  I exclaimed sharply.  All this time I had
+forgotten that grievance.  "You nearly frightened her out of her
+wits, St. Croix.  I cannot think what possessed you--why you did
+it?"
+
+"To save your life, Anne" he answered solemnly, "and her from a
+crime!  an unutterable, an unnatural crime.  She had come back to
+I can hardly tell it you--to murder her sister.  You start.  You
+do not believe me.  It sounds too horrible.  But I could see
+better than you could.  She was exactly between you and the
+light.  I saw the knife raised.  I saw her wicked face!  If I had
+not startled her as I did, she would have stabbed you.  She
+dropped the knife on the floor, and I picked it up and have it.
+See!"
+
+I looked furtively, and turned away again, shivering.  "Why," I
+muttered, "why did she do it?"
+
+"She had failed you know to get her sister back to Pavannes'
+house, where she would have fallen an easy victim.  Bezers, who
+knew Madame d'O, prevented that.  Then that fiend slipped back
+with her knife; thinking that in the common butchery the crime
+would be overlooked, and never investigated, and that Mirepoix
+would be silent!"
+
+I said nothing.  I was stunned.  Yet I believed the story.  When
+I went over the facts in my mind I found that a dozen things,
+overlooked at the time and almost forgotten in the hurry of
+events, sprang up to confirm it.  M. de Pavannes'--the other M.
+de Pavannes'--suspicions had been well founded.  Worse than
+Bezers was she?  Ay!  worse a hundred times.  As much worse as
+treachery ever is than violence; as the pitiless fraud of the
+serpent is baser than the rage of the wolf.
+
+"I thought," Croisette added softly, not looking at me, "when I
+discovered that you had gone off with her, that I should never
+see you again, Anne.  I gave you up for lost.  The happiest
+moment of my life I think was when I saw you come back."
+
+"Croisette," I whispered piteously, my cheeks burning, "let us
+never speak of her again."
+
+And we never did--for years.  But how strange is life.  She and
+the wicked man with whom her fate seemed bound up had just
+crossed our lives when their own were at the darkest.  They
+clashed with us, and, strangers and boys as we were, we ruined
+them.  I have often asked myself what would have happened to me
+had I met her at some earlier and less stormy period--in the
+brilliance of her beauty.  And I find but one answer.  I should
+bitterly have rued the day.  Providence was good to me.  Such men
+and such women, we may believe have ceased to exist now.  They
+flourished in those miserable days of war and divisions, and
+passed away with them like the foul night-birds of the battle-
+field.
+
+To return to our journey.  In the morning sunshine one could not
+but be cheerful, and think good things possible.  The worst trial
+I had came with each sunset.  For then--we generally rode late
+into the evening--Louis sought my side to talk to me of his
+sweetheart.  And how he would talk of her!  How many thousand
+messages he gave me for her!  How often he recalled old days
+among the hills, with each laugh and jest and incident, when we
+five had been as children!  Until I would wonder passionately,
+the tears running down my face in the darkness, how he could--how
+he could talk of her in that quiet voice which betrayed no
+rebellion against fate, no cursing of Providence!  How he could
+plan for her and think of her when she should be alone!
+
+Now I understand it.  He was still labouring under the shock of
+his friends' murder.  He was still partially stunned.  Death
+seemed natural and familiar to him, as to one who had seen his
+allies and companions perish without warning or preparation.
+Death had come to be normal to him, life the exception; as I have
+known it seem to a child brought face to face with a corpse for
+the first time.
+
+One afternoon a strange thing happened.  We could see the
+Auvergne hills at no great distance on our left--the Puy de Dome
+above them--and we four were riding together.  We had fallen--an
+unusual thing--to the rear of the party.  Our road at the moment
+was a mere track running across moorland, sprinkled here and
+there with gorse and brushwood.  The main company had straggled
+on out of sight.  There were but half a dozen riders to be seen
+an eighth of a league before us, a couple almost as far behind.
+I looked every way with a sudden surging of the heart.  For the
+first time the possibility of flight occurred to me.  The rough
+Auvergne hills were within reach.  Supposing we could get a lead
+of a quarter of a league, we could hardly be caught before
+darkness came and covered us.  Why should we not put spurs to our
+horses and ride off?
+
+"Impossible!"  said Pavannes quietly, when I spoke.
+
+"Why?"  I asked with warmth.
+
+"Firstly," he replied, "because I have given my word to go with
+the Vidame to Cahors."
+
+My face flushed hotly.  But I cried, "What of that?  You were
+taken by treachery!  Your safe conduct was disregarded.  Why
+should you be scrupulous?  Your enemies are not.  This is folly?"
+
+"I think not.  Nay," Louis answered, shaking his head, "you would
+not do it yourself in my place."
+
+"I think I should," I stammered awkwardly.
+
+"No, you would not, lad," he said smiling.  "I know you too well.
+But if I would do it, it is impossible."  He turned in the saddle
+and, shading his eyes with his hand from the level rays of the
+sun, looked back intently.  "It is as I thought," he continued.
+"One of those men is riding grey Margot, which Bure said
+yesterday was the fastest mare in the troop.  And the man on her
+is a light weight.  The other fellow has that Norman bay horse we
+were looking at this morning.  It is a trap laid by Bezers, Anne.
+If we turned aside a dozen yards, those two would be after us
+like the wind."
+
+"Do you mean," I cried, "that Bezers has drawn his men forward on
+purpose?"
+
+"Precisely;" was Louis's answer.  "That is the fact.  Nothing
+would please him better than to take my honour first, and my life
+afterwards.  But, thank God, only the one is in his power."
+
+And when I came to look at the horsemen, immediately before us,
+they confirmed Louis's view.  They were the best mounted of the
+party:  all men of light weight too.  One or other of them was
+constantly looking back.  As night fell they closed in upon us
+with their usual care.  When Bure joined us there was a gleam of
+intelligence in his bold eyes, a flash of conscious trickery.  He
+knew that we had found him out, and cared nothing for it.
+
+And the others cared nothing.  But the thought that if left to
+myself I should have fallen into the Vidame's cunning trap filled
+me with new hatred towards him; such hatred and such fear--for
+there was humiliation mingled with them--as I had scarcely felt
+before.  I brooded over this, barely noticing what passed in our
+company for hours--nay, not until the next day when, towards
+evening, the cry arose round me that we were within sight of
+Cahors.  Yes, there it lay below us, in its shallow basin,
+surrounded by gentle hills.  The domes of the cathedral, the
+towers of the Vallandre Bridge, the bend of the Lot, where its
+stream embraces the town--I knew them all.  Our long journey was
+over.
+
+And I had but one idea.  I had some time before communicated to
+Croisette the desperate design I had formed--to fall upon Bezers
+and kill him in the midst of his men in the last resort.  Now the
+time had come if the thing was ever to be done:  if we had not
+left it too long already.  And I looked about me.  There was some
+confusion and jostling as we halted on the brow of the hill,
+while two men were despatched ahead to announce the governor's
+arrival, and Bure, with half a dozen spears, rode out as an
+advanced guard.
+
+The road where we stood was narrow, a shallow cutting winding
+down the declivity of the hills.  The horses were tired, It was a
+bad time and place for my design, and only the coming night was
+in my favour.  But I was desperate.
+
+Yet before I moved or gave a signal which nothing could recall, I
+scanned the landscape eagerly, scrutinizing in turn the small,
+rich plain below us, warmed by the last rays of the sun, the bare
+hills here glowing, there dark, the scattered wood-clumps and
+spinneys that filled the angles of the river, even the dusky line
+of helm-oaks that crowned the ridge beyond--Caylus way.  So near
+our own country there might be help!  If the messenger whom we
+had despatched to the Vicomte before leaving home had reached
+him, our uncle might have returned, and even be in Cahors to meet
+us.
+
+But no party appeared in sight:  and I saw no place where an
+ambush could be lying.  I remembered that no tidings of our
+present plight or of what had happened could have reached the
+Vicomte.  The hope faded out of life as soon as despair had given
+it birth.  We must fend for ourselves and for Kit.
+
+That was my justification.  I leaned from my saddle towards
+Croisette--I was riding by his side--and muttered, as I felt my
+horse's head and settled myself firmly in the stirrups, "You
+remember what I said?  Are you ready?"
+
+He looked at me in a startled way, with a face showing white in
+the shadow:  and from me to the one solitary figure seated like a
+pillar a score of paces in front with no one between us and it.
+"There need be but two of us," I muttered, loosening my sword.
+"Shall it be you or Marie?  The others must leap their horses out
+of the road in the confusion, cross the river at the Arembal Ford
+if they are not overtaken, and make for Caylus."
+
+He hesitated.  I do not know whether it had anything to do with
+his hesitation that at that moment the cathedral bell in the town
+below us began to ring slowly for Vespers.  Yes, he hesitated.
+He--a Caylus.  Turning to him again, I repeated my question
+impatiently.  "Which shall it be?  A moment, and we shall be
+moving on, and it will be too late."
+
+He laid his hand hurriedly on my bridle, and began a rambling
+answer.  Rambling as it was I gathered his meaning.  It was
+enough for me!  I cut him short with one word of fiery
+indignation, and turned to Marie and spoke quickly.  "Will you,
+then?"  I said.
+
+But Marie shook his head in perplexity, and answering little,
+said the same.  So it happened a second time.
+
+Strange!  Yet strange as it seemed, I was not greatly surprised.
+Under other circumstances I should have been beside myself with
+anger at the defection.  Now I felt as if I had half expected it,
+and without further words of reproach I dropped my head and gave
+it up.  I passed again into the stupor of endurance.  The Vidame
+was too strong for me.  It was useless to fight against him.  We
+were under the spell.  When the troop moved forward, I went with
+them, silent and apathetic.
+
+We passed through the gate of Cahors, and no doubt the scene was
+worthy of note; but I had only a listless eye for it--much such
+an eye as a man about to be broken on the wheel must have for
+that curious instrument, supposing him never to have seen it
+before.  The whole population had come out to line the streets
+through which we rode, and stood gazing, with scarcely veiled
+looks of apprehension, at the procession of troopers and the
+stern face of the new governor.
+
+We dismounted passively in the courtyard of the castle, and were
+for going in together, when Bure intervened.  "M. de Pavannes,"
+he said, pushing rather rudely between us, "will sup alone to-
+night.  For you, gentlemen, this way, if you please."
+
+I went without remonstrance.  What was the use?  I was conscious
+that the Vidame from the top of the stairs leading to the grand
+entrance was watching us with a wolfish glare in his eyes.  I
+went quietly.  But I heard Croisette urging something with
+passionate energy.
+
+We were led through a low doorway to a room on the ground floor;
+a place very like a cell.  Were we took our meal in silence.
+When it was over I flung myself on one of the beds prepared for
+us, shrinking from my companions rather in misery than in
+resentment.
+
+No explanation had passed between us.  Still I knew that the
+other two from time to time eyed me doubtfully.  I feigned
+therefore to be asleep, but I heard Bure enter to bid us good-
+night--and see that we had not escaped.  And I was conscious too
+of the question Croisette put to him, "Does M. de Pavannes lie
+alone to-night, Bure?"
+
+"Not entirely," the captain answered with gloomy meaning.  Indeed
+he seemed in bad spirits himself, or tired.  "The Vidame is
+anxious for his soul's welfare, and sends a priest to him."
+
+They sprang to their feet at that.  But the light and its bearer,
+who so far recovered himself as to chuckle at his master's pious
+thought, had disappeared.  They were left to pace the room, and
+reproach themselves and curse the Vidame in an agony of late
+repentance.  Not even Marie could find a loop-hole of escape from
+here.  The door was double-locked; the windows so barred that a
+cat could scarcely pass through them; the walls were of solid
+masonry.
+
+Meanwhile I lay and feigned to sleep, and lay feigning through
+long, long hours; though my heart like theirs throbbed in
+response to the dull hammering that presently began without, and
+not far from us, and lasted until daybreak.  From our windows,
+set low and facing a wall, we could see nothing.  But we could
+guess what the noise meant, the dull, earthy thuds when posts
+were set in the ground, the brisk, wooden clattering when one
+plank was laid to another.  We could not see the progress of the
+work, or hear the voices of the workmen, or catch the glare of
+their lights.  But we knew what they were doing.  They were
+raising the scaffold.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+JOY IN THE MORNING.
+
+I was too weary with riding to go entirely without sleep.  And
+moreover it is anxiety and the tremor of excitement which make
+the pillow sleepless, not, heaven be thanked, sorrow.  God made
+man to lie awake and hope:  but never to lie awake and grieve.
+An hour or two before daybreak I fell asleep, utterly worn out.
+When I awoke, the sun was high, and shining slantwise on our
+window.  The room was gay with the morning rays, and soft with
+the morning freshness, and I lay a while, my cheek on my hand,
+drinking in the cheerful influence as I had done many and many a
+day in our room at Caylus.  It was the touch of Marie's hand,
+laid timidly on my arm, which roused me with a shock to
+consciousness.  The truth broke upon me.  I remembered where we
+were, and what was before us.  "Will you get up, Anne?"
+Croisette said.  "The Vidame has sent for us."
+
+I got to my feet, and buckled on my sword.  Croisette was leaning
+against the wall, pale and downcast.  Bure filled the open
+doorway, his feathered cap in his hand, a queer smile on his
+face.  "You are a good sleeper, young gentleman," he said.  "You
+should have a good conscience."
+
+"Better than yours, no doubt!"  I retorted, "or your master's."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and, bidding us by a sign to follow
+him, led the way through several gloomy passages.  At the end of
+these, a flight of stone steps leading upwards seemed to promise
+something better; and true enough, the door at the top being
+opened, the murmur of a crowd reached our ears, with a burst of
+sunlight and warmth.  We were in a lofty room, with walls in some
+places painted, and elsewhere hung with tapestry; well lighted by
+three old pointed windows reaching to the rush-covered floor.
+The room was large, set here and there with stands of arms, and
+had a dais with a raised carved chair at one end.  The ceiling
+was of blue, with gold stars set about it.  Seeing this, I
+remembered the place.  I had been in it once, years ago, when I
+had attended the Vicomte on a state visit to the governor.  Ah!
+that the Vicomte were here now!
+
+I advanced to the middle window, which was open.  Then I started
+back, for outside was the scaffold built level with the floor,
+and rush-covered like it!  Two or three people were lounging on
+it.  My eyes sought Louis among the group, but in vain.  He was
+not there:  and while I looked for him, I heard a noise behind
+me, and he came in, guarded by four soldiers with pikes.
+
+His face was pale and grave, but perfectly composed.  There was a
+wistful look in his eyes indeed, as if he were thinking of
+something or some one far away--Kit's face on the sunny hills of
+Quercy where he had ridden with her, perhaps; a look which seemed
+to say that the doings here were nothing to him, and the parting
+was yonder where she was.  But his bearing was calm and
+collected, his step firm and fearless.  When he saw us, indeed
+his face lightened a moment and he greeted us cheerfully, even
+acknowledging Bure's salutation with dignity and good temper.
+Croisette sprang towards him impulsively, and cried his name--
+Croisette ever the first to speak.  But before Louis could grasp
+his hand, the door at the bottom of the hall was swung open, and
+the Vidame came hurriedly in.
+
+He was alone.  He glanced round, his forbidding face, which was
+somewhat flushed as if by haste, wearing a scowl.  Then he saw
+us, and, nodding haughtily, strode up the floor, his spurs
+clanking heavily on the boards.  We gave us no greeting, but by a
+short word dismissed Bure and the soldiers to the lower end of
+the room.  And then he stood and looked at us four, but
+principally at his rival; and looked, and looked with eyes of
+smouldering hate.  And there was a silence, a long silence, while
+the murmur of the crowd came almost cheerfully through the
+window, and the sparrows under the eaves chirped and twittered,
+and the heart that throbbed least painfully was, I do believe,
+Louis de Pavannes'!
+
+At last Bezers broke the silence.
+
+"M. de Pavannes!"  he began, speaking hoarsely, yet concealing
+all passion under a cynical smile and a mock politeness, "M. de
+Pavannes, I hold the king's commission to put to death all the
+Huguenots within my province of Quercy.  Have you anything to
+say, I beg, why I should not begin with you?  Or do you wish to
+return to the Church?"
+
+Louis shrugged his shoulders as in contempt, and held his peace,
+I saw his captor's great hands twitch convulsively at this, but
+still the Vidame mastered himself, and when he spoke again he
+spoke slowly.  "Very well," he continued, taking no heed of us,
+the silent witnesses of this strange struggle between the two
+men, but eyeing Louis only.  "You have wronged me more than any
+man alive.  Alive or dead!  or dead!  You have thwarted me, M. de
+Pavannes, and taken from me the woman I loved.  Six days ago I
+might have killed you.  I had it in my power.  I had but to leave
+you to the rabble, remember, and you would have been rotting at
+Montfaucon to-day, M. de Pavannes."
+
+"That is true," said Louis quietly.  "Why so many words?"
+
+But the Vidame went on as if he had not heard.  "I did not leave
+you to them," he resumed, "and yet I hate you--more than I ever
+hated any man yet, and I am not apt to forgive.  But now the time
+has come, sir, for my revenge!  The oath I swore to your mistress
+a fortnight ago I will keep to the letter.  I--Silence, babe!"
+he thundered, turning suddenly, "or I will keep my word with you
+too!"
+
+Croisette had muttered something, and this had drawn on him the
+glare of Bezers' eyes.  But the threat was effectual.  Croisette
+was silent.  The two were left henceforth to one another.
+
+Yet the Vidame seemed to be put out by the interruption.
+Muttering a string of oaths he strode from us to the window and
+back again.  The cool cynicism, with which he was wont to veil
+his anger and impose on other men, while it heightened the effect
+of his ruthless deeds, in part fell from him.  He showed himself
+as he was--masterful, and violent, hating, with all the strength
+of a turbulent nature which had never known a check.  I quailed
+before him myself.  I confess it.
+
+"Listen!"  he continued harshly, coming back and taking his place
+in front of us at last, his manner more violent than before the
+interruption.  "I might have left you to die in that hell yonder!
+And I did not leave you.  I had but to hold my hand and you would
+have been torn to pieces!  The wolf, however, does not hunt with
+the rats, and a Bezers wants no help in his vengeance from king
+or CANAILLE!  When I hunt my enemy down I will hunt him alone, do
+you hear?  And as there is a heaven above me"--he paused a
+moment--"if I ever meet you face to face again, M. de Pavannes, I
+will kill you where you stand!"
+
+He paused, and the murmur of the crowd without came to my ears;
+but mingled with and heightened by some confusion in my thoughts.
+I struggled feebly with this, seeing a rush of colour to
+Croisette's face, a lightening in his eyes as if a veil had been
+raised from before them.  Some confusion--for I thought I grasped
+the Vidame's meaning; yet there he was still glowering on his
+victim with the same grim visage, still speaking in the same
+rough tone.  "Listen, M. de Pavannes," he continued, rising to
+his full height and waving his hand with a certain majesty
+towards the window--no one had spoken.  "The doors are open! Your
+mistress is at Caylus.  The road is clear, go to her; go to her,
+and tell her that I have saved your life, and that I give it to
+you not out of love, but out of hate!  If you had flinched I
+would have killed you, for so you would have suffered most, M. de
+Pavannes.  As it is, take your life--a gift!  and suffer as I
+should if I were saved and spared by my enemy!"
+
+Slowly the full sense of his words came home to me.  Slowly; not
+in its full completeness indeed until I heard Louis in broken
+phrases, phrases half proud and half humble, thanking him for his
+generosity.  Even then I almost lost the true and wondrous
+meaning of the thing when I heard his answer.  For he cut
+Pavannes short with bitter caustic gibes, spurned his proffered
+gratitude with insults, and replied to his acknowledgments with
+threats.
+
+"Go!  go!"  he continued to cry violently.  "Have I brought you
+so far safely that you will cheat me of my vengeance at the last,
+and provoke me to kill you?  Away!  and take these blind puppies
+with you!  Reckon me as much your enemy now as ever!  And if I
+meet you, be sure you will meet a foe!  Begone, M. de Pavannes,
+begone!"
+
+"But, M. de Bezers," Louis persisted, "hear me.  It takes two
+to--"
+
+"Begone!  begone!  before we do one another a mischief!"  cried
+the Vidame furiously.  "Every word you say in that strain is an
+injury to me.  It robs me of my vengeance.  Go!  in God's name!"
+
+And we went; for there was no change, no promise of softening in
+his malignant aspect as he spoke; nor any as he stood and watched
+us draw off slowly from him.  We went one by one, each lingering
+after the other, striving, out of a natural desire to thank him,
+to break through that stern reserve.  But grim and unrelenting, a
+picture of scorn to the last, he saw us go.
+
+My latest memory of that strange man--still fresh after a lapse
+of two and fifty years--is of a huge form towering in the gloom
+below the state canopy, the sunlight which poured in through the
+windows and flooded us, falling short of him; of a pair of fierce
+cross eyes, that seemed to glow as they covered us; of a lip that
+curled as in the enjoyment of some cruel jest.  And so I--and I
+think each of us four saw the last of Raoul de Mar, Vidame de
+Bezers, in this life.
+
+He was a man whom we cannot judge by to-day's standard; for he
+was such an one in his vices and his virtues as the present day
+does not know; one who in his time did immense evil--and if his
+friends be believed, little good.  But the evil is forgotten; the
+good lives.  And if all that good save one act were buried with
+him, this one act alone, the act of a French gentleman, would be
+told of him--ay!  and will be told--as long as the kingdom of
+France, and the gracious memory of the late king, shall endure.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *
+
+I see again by the simple process of shutting my eyes, the little
+party of five--for Jean, our servant, had rejoined us--who on
+that summer day rode over the hills to Caylus, threading the
+mazes of the holm-oaks, and galloping down the rides, and
+hallooing the hare from her form, but never pursuing her;
+arousing the nestling farmhouses from their sleepy stillness by
+joyous shout and laugh, and sniffing, as we climbed the hill-side
+again, the scent of the ferns that died crushed under our horses'
+hoofs--died only that they might add one little pleasure more to
+the happiness God had given us.  Rare and sweet indeed are those
+few days in life, when it seems that all creation lives only that
+we may have pleasure in it, and thank God for it.  It is well
+that we should make the most of them, as we surely did of that
+day.
+
+It was nightfall when we reached the edge of the uplands, and
+looked down on Caylus.  The last rays of the sun lingered with
+us, but the valley below was dark; so dark that even the rock
+about which our homes clustered would have been invisible save
+for the half-dozen lights that were beginning to twinkle into
+being on its summit.  A silence fell upon us as we slowly wended
+our way down the well-known path.
+
+All day long we had ridden in great joy; if thoughtless, yet
+innocent; if selfish, yet thankful; and always blithely, with a
+great exultation and relief at heart, a great rejoicing for our
+own sakes and for Kit's.
+
+Now with the nightfall and the darkness, now when we were near
+our home, and on the eve of giving joy to another, we grew
+silent.  There arose other thoughts--thoughts of all that had
+happened since we had last ascended that track; and so our minds
+turned naturally back to him to whom we owed our happiness--to
+the giant left behind in his pride and power and his loneliness.
+The others could think of him with full hearts, yet without
+shame.  But I reddened, reflecting how it would have been with us
+if I had had my way; if I had resorted in my shortsightedness to
+one last violent, cowardly deed, and killed him, as I had twice
+wished to do.
+
+Pavannes would then have been lost almost certainly.  Only the
+Vidame with his powerful troop--we never knew whether he had
+gathered them for that purpose or merely with an eye to his
+government--could have saved him.  And few men however powerful--
+perhaps Bezers only of all men in Paris would have dared to
+snatch him from the mob when once it had sighted him.  I dwell on
+this now that my grandchildren may take warning by it, though
+never will they see such days as I have seen.
+
+And so we clattered up the steep street of Caylus with a pleasant
+melancholy upon us, and passed, not without a more serious
+thought, the gloomy, frowning portals, all barred and shuttered,
+of the House of the Wolf, and under the very window, sombre and
+vacant, from which Bezers had incited the rabble in their attack
+on Pavannes' courier.  We had gone by day, and we came back by
+night.  But we had gone trembling, and we came back in joy.
+
+We did not need to ring the great bell.  Jean's cry, "Ho!  Gate
+there!  Open for my lords!"  had scarcely passed his lips before
+we were admitted.  And ere we could mount the ramp, one person
+outran those who came forth to see what the matter was; one
+outran Madame Claude, outran old Gil, outran the hurrying
+servants, and the welcome of the house.  I saw a slender figure
+all in white break away from the little crowd and dart towards
+us, disclosing as it reached me a face that seemed still whiter
+than its robes, and yet a face that seemed all eyes--eyes that
+asked the question the lips could not frame.
+
+I stood aside with a low bow, my hat in my hand; and said simply
+--it was the great effect of my life--"VOILA Monsieur!"
+
+And then I saw the sun rise in a woman's face.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The Vidame de Bezers died as he had lived.  He was still Governor
+of Cahors when Henry the Great attacked it on the night of the
+17th of June, 1580.  Taken by surprise and wounded in the first
+confusion of the assault, he still defended himself and his
+charge with desperate courage, fighting from street to street,
+and house to house for five nights and as many days.  While he
+lived Henry's destiny and the fate of France trembled in the
+balance.  But he fell at length, his brain pierced by the ball of
+an arquebuse, and died an hour before sunset on the 22nd of June.
+The garrison immediately surrendered.
+
+Marie and I were present in this action on the side of the King
+of Navarre, and at the request of that prince hastened to pay
+such honours to the body of the Vidame as were due to his renown
+and might serve to evince our gratitude.  A year later his
+remains were removed from Cahors, and laid where they now rest in
+his own Abbey Church of Bezers, under a monument which very
+briefly tells of his stormy life and his valour.  No matter.  He
+has small need of a monument whose name lives in the history of
+his country, and whose epitaph is written in the lives of men.
+
+NOTE.--THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF VIDAME DE BEZERS, AS THEY
+APPEAR IN THE ABOVE MEMOIR FIND A PARALLEL IN AN ACCOUNT GIVEN BY
+DE THOU OF ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE INCIDENTS IN THE MASSACRE
+OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW:  "AMID SUCH EXAMPLES," HE WRITES, "OF THE
+FEROCITY OF THE CITY, A THING HAPPENED WORTHY TO BE RELATED, AND
+WHICH MAY PERHAPS IN SOME DEGREE WEIGH AGAINST THESE ATROCITIES.
+THERE WAS A DEADLY HATRED, WHICH UP TO THIS TIME THE INTERVENTION
+OF THEIR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS HAD FAILED TO APPEASE, BETWEEN
+TWO MEN--VEZINS, THE LIEUTENANT OF HONORATUS OF SAVOY, MARSHAL
+VILLARS, A MAN NOTABLE AMONG THE NOBILITY OF THE PROVINCE FOR HIS
+VALOUR, BUT OBNOXIOUS TO MANY OWING TO HIS BRUTAL DISPOSITION
+(ferina natura), AND REGNIER, A YOUNG MAN OF LIKE RANK AND
+VIGOUR, BUT OF MILDER CHARACTER.  WHEN REGNIER THEN, IN THE
+MIDDLE OF THAT GREAT UPROAR, DEATH MEETING HIS EYE EVERYWHERE,
+WAS MAKING UP HIS MIND TO THE WORST, HIS DOOR WAS SUDDENLY BURST
+OPEN, AND VEZINS, WITH TWO OTHER MEN, STOOD BEFORE HIM SWORD IN
+HAND.  UPON THIS REGNIER, ASSURED OF DEATH, KNELT DOWN AND ASKED
+MERCY OF HEAVEN:  BUT VEZINS IN A HARSH VOICE BID HIM RISE FROM
+HIS PRAYERS AND MOUNT A PALFREY ALREADY STANDING READY IN THE
+STREET FOR HIM.  SO HE LED REGNIER--UNCERTAIN FOR THE TIME
+WHITHER HE WAS BEING TAKEN--OUT OF THE CITY, AND PUT HIM ON HIS
+HONOUR TO GO WITH HIM WITHOUT TRYING TO ESCAPE.  AND TOGETHER,
+WITHOUT PAUSING IN THEIR JOURNEY, THE TWO TRAVELLED ALL THE WAY
+TO GUIENNE.  DURING THIS TIME VEZINS HONOURED REGNIER WITH VERY
+LITTLE CONVERSATION; BUT SO FAR CARED FOR HIM THAT FOOD WAS
+PREPARED FOR HIM AT THE INNS BY HIS SERVANTS:  AND SO THEY CAME
+TO QUERCY AND THE CASTLE OF REGNIER.  THERE VEZINS TURNED TO HIM
+AND SAID, "YOU KNOW HOW I HAVE FOR A LONG TIME BACK SOUGHT TO
+AVENGE MYSELF ON YOU, AND HOW EASILY I MIGHT NOW HAVE DONE IT TO
+THE FULL, HAD I BEEN WILLING TO USE THIS OPPORTUNITY.  BUT SHAME
+WOULD NOT SUFFER IT; AND BESIDES, YOUR COURAGE SEEMED WORTHY TO
+BE SET AGAINST MINE ON EVEN TERMS.  TAKE THEREFORE THE LIFE WHICH
+YOU OWE TO MY KINDNESS."  WITH MUCH MORE WHICH THE CURIOUS WILL
+FIND IN THE 2ND (FOLIO) VOLUME OF DE THOU.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The House of the Wolf, by Stanley Weyman
+
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