Just then the clock struck and Charles IX. stopped listening to his mother to count the strokes.
"Good heavens! seven o'clock!" he exclaimed, "one hour before we get off, that will make it eight; one hour to reach the meeting-place, and to start again—we shall not be able to begin hunting before nine o'clock. Really, mother, you make me lose a great deal of time! Down, Risquetout! great Heavens! down, I say, you brigand!"
And a vigorous blow of the bloody whip on the mastiff's back brought a howl of real pain from the poor beast, thoroughly astonished at receiving punishment in exchange for a caress.
"Charles!" said Catharine, "listen to me, in God's name, and do not leave to chance your fortune and that of France! The hunt, the hunt, the hunt, you cry; why, you will have time enough to hunt when your work of king is settled."
"Come now, mother!" exclaimed Charles, pale with impatience, "explain quickly, for you bother me to death. Really, there are days when I cannot comprehend you."
He stopped beating his whip against his boot.
Catharine thought that the time had come and that it should not be passed by.
"My son," said she, "we have proof that De Mouy has returned to Paris. Monsieur de Maurevel, whom you are well acquainted with, has seen him. This can be only for the King of Navarre. That is enough, I trust, for us to suspect him more than ever."
"Come, there you go again after my poor Henriot! You want me to have him killed; do you not?"
"Oh, no."