‘A beryl!’ cried the fool, showing a small crystal of a reddish tint to the crowd. ‘A beryl! to tell your fortune then. Who will read the vision in it? a young maiden, pure and without guile, can alone do it; are there none in our good city of Paris?’
None stepped forward. The fair-haired cavalier laughed aloud as he cried out:
‘You seem to have told what is past better than you can predict what is to come. Ho! sirs, what say you to this slur upon the fair fame of your daughters and sisters—will none of them venture?’
A murmur was arising from the crowd, when the physician, who had been glancing angrily at the two young officers, suddenly rose up, and shouted with a foreign accent—
‘If you will have your destinies unfolded, there needs no beryl to picture them. Let me look at your hands, and I will tell you all.’
‘A match!’ cried the young soldier. ‘Now, good people, let us pass, and see what this solemn-visaged doctor knows about us.’
The two officers advanced towards the platform. As they approached it, the crowd fell back, and then immediately closed after them with eager curiosity. The friends stood now directly beside the waggon.
‘Your hands!’ said the physician.
They were immediately extended to him.
‘You are in the king’s service,’ continued he.