Coconnas shrugged his shoulders and lay down again.
At that moment in the opposite direction from that in which the queen was going, but in the same alley, there passed at full speed a troop of horsemen whom the two friends recognized as ardent, almost rabid Protestants. Their steeds bounded like the locusts of which Job said, 'They came and went.'"
"The deuce! the affair is growing serious," said Coconnas, rising. "Let us go to the pavilion of François I."
"No," said La Mole; "if we are discovered it will be towards the pavilion that the attention of the King will be at first directed, since that is the general meeting-place."
"You may be right, this time," grumbled Coconnas.
Scarcely had Coconnas uttered these words before a horseman passed among the trees like a flash of lightning, and leaping ditches, bushes, and all barriers reached the two gentlemen.
He held a pistol in each hand and with his knees alone guided his horse in its furious chase.
"Monsieur de Mouy!" exclaimed Coconnas, uneasy and now more on the alert than La Mole; "Monsieur de Mouy running away! Every one for himself, then!"
"Quick! quick!" cried the Huguenot; "away! all is lost! I have come around to tell you so. Away!"
As if he had not stopped to utter these words, he was gone almost before they were spoken, and before La Mole and Coconnas realized their meaning.