"Courage," said Coconnas; "we may perhaps find all this above."
"Do you think so?" murmured La Mole.
"I think so, because the priest said so; and above all, because I hope so. But do not faint, my friend, or these staring wretches will laugh at us."
Caboche heard the last words and whipping his horse with one hand he extended the other, unseen by any one, to Coconnas. It contained a small sponge saturated with a powerful stimulant, and La Mole, after smelling it and rubbing his forehead with it, felt himself revived and reanimated.
"Ah!" said La Mole, "I am better," and he kissed the reliquary, which he wore around his neck.
As they turned a corner of the quay and reached the small edifice built by Henry II. they saw the scaffold rising bare and bloody on its platform above the heads of the crowd.
"Dear friend," said La Mole, "I wish I might be the first to die."
Coconnas again touched the hangman's shoulder.
"What is it, my gentleman?" said the latter, turning around.
"My good fellow," said Coconnas, "you will do what you can for me, will you not? You said you would."