“And you did well.”
“M. de Guise offered to protect him.”
“What! the great Henri?”
“Himself; but I feared civil war.”
“If you are friends of M. de Guise, you know this;” and he made a sort of masonic sign by which the leaguers recognized each other.
Chicot, who had seen both this and the answer to it twenty times during that famous night, replied, “And you this?”
“Then,” said the innkeeper, “you are at home here; my house is yours, look on me as a brother, and if you have no money——”
Chicot drew out his purse. The sight of a well-filled purse is always agreeable, even to a generous host.
“Our journey,” continued Chicot, “is paid for by the treasurer of the Holy Union, for we travel to propagate the faith. Tell us of an inn where we may be safe.”
“Nowhere more so than here, and if you wish it, the other traveler shall turn out.”