The man bowed and led our prisoner down a corridor to the left. Richelieu sprang up the stairs, and I followed him to the apartment we had entered the evening before. Here he paused.
“De Brancas,” he said, turning to me and grasping my hand, “you are sublime, my friend. Believe me, I shall never forget it.”
CHAPTER VII
AT THE DRYAD FOUNTAIN
“We shall need disguises,” said Richelieu, as I returned his clasp with equal warmth. “Luckily, I have already had many occasions for using them, and so have a large assortment. Come with me,” and he led the way into an adjoining room, whose walls were covered with costumes. There were uniforms of many kinds, cavaliers’ suits of a dozen fashions and even the more sober garb of artisans and masons. At one end of the room was a collection of arms,—swords, poniards, pistols, arquebuses, and even shirts of mail. “Choose,” said Richelieu, with a sweep of his hand. “As for me, I shall take this suit of gray. I am known to abhor gray, and moreover it will make me invisible in the darkness.”
The reason seemed to me a good one, and I selected a suit of similar shade but much less elaborate design.
“Oh, I had near forgot!” I exclaimed, returning, as I was leaving the room. “Will you instruct one of your people to prepare against our return a small box of cement?”
“Cement?” asked Richelieu, looking at me in astonishment.
“Yes; we shall need it,” I answered.
“Very well, my friend,” he said, and without waiting to explain the use I had for it, I hurried to my apartment, where I changed my clothes, rolling my others into a bundle, which I carried down with me to Richelieu’s room five minutes later. I found him busily engaged in curling his moustache and arranging his hair.
“We have no time to lose, monsieur,” I protested.