"Well!" asked La Mole, after reading it, "are these swords longer than mine?"
"No, but there may be ten against one."
"Who is the friend who has sent us this note?" asked La Mole.
Marguerite took it from the young man's hand and looked at it attentively.
"The King of Navarre's handwriting!" she cried. "If he warns us, the danger is great. Flee, La Mole, flee, I beg you."
"How?" asked La Mole.
"By this window. Does not the note refer to it?"
"Command, my queen, and I will leap from the window to obey you, if I broke my head twenty times by the fall."
"Wait, wait," said Marguerite. "It seems to me that there is a weight attached to this cord."
"Let us see," said La Mole.