The light-horse dropped their muskets.
"But first tell us why we must do so?"
"You must ask that of the King of Navarre."
"What crime have we committed?"
"Monsieur d'Alençon will inform you."
Coconnas and La Mole looked at each other. The name of their enemy at such a moment did not greatly reassure them.
Yet neither of them made any resistance. Coconnas was asked to dismount, a manœuvre which he executed without a word. Then both were placed in the centre of the light-horse and took the road to the pavilion.
"You always wanted to see the pavilion of François I.," said Coconnas to La Mole, perceiving through the trees the walls of a beautiful Gothic structure; "now it seems you will."
La Mole made no reply, but merely extended his hand to Coconnas.
By the side of this lovely pavilion, built in the time of Louis XII., and named after François I., because the latter always chose it as a meeting-place when he hunted, was a kind of hut built for prickers, partly hidden behind the muskets, halberds, and shining swords like an ant-hill under a whitening harvest.