“I will take care of them, as of the king’s friends.”
Antragues wrapped himself in a cloak which his squire handed to him, so that no one might see the blood with which he was covered, and, leaving the dead and wounded, he disappeared through the Porte St. Antoine.
CHAPTER XCVII.
THE END.
The king, pale with anxiety, and shuddering at the slightest noise, employed himself in conjecturing, with the experience of a practised man, the time that it would take for the antagonists to meet and that the combat would last.
“Now,” he murmured first, “they are crossing the Rue St. Antoine—now they are entering the field—now they have begun.” And at these words, the poor king, trembling, began to pray.
Rising again in a few minutes, he cried:
“If Quelus only remembers the thrust I taught him! As for Schomberg, he is so cool that he ought to kill Ribeirac; Maugiron, also, should be more than a match for Livarot. But D’Epernon, he is lost; fortunately he is the one of the four whom I love least. But if Bussy, the terrible Bussy, after killing him, falls on the others! Ah, my poor friends!”
“Sire!” said Crillon, at the door.