"At any rate, I have taken my precautions. I quite understand that, if the danger is foreseen, you will all rally round the Admiral and try to fight your way out of Paris. But if it comes suddenly there will be no time for this. At any hour the mob may come surging up the streets, shouting, as they have often shouted before, 'Death to the Huguenots!' Then, monsieur, fighting would not avail you. You would be unable to join your friends, and you would have to think first of your own life.
"I have been examining the house, and I find that from an upper window one can gain the roof. I got out yesterday evening, after it was dark, and found that I could easily make my way along. The tenth house from here is the one where the Count de Valecourt lodges, and it is easy to gain access to it by a window in the roof. There will be some of your friends there, at any rate. Or we can pass down through any of the intervening houses. In the three before we reach that of the count Huguenots are lodged. The others belong to Catholics, but it might be possible to pass down through them and to go into the street unobserved.
"I have bought for myself some rags, such as are worn by the lowest of the mob; and for you a monk's gown and hood. These I have placed securely against a chimney on our roof.
"I have also, monsieur," and Pierre's eyes twinkled, "bought the dress of a woman of the lower class, thinking that there might be some lady you might be desirous of saving."
"You frighten me, Pierre, with your roofs and your disguises," Philip said, looking with wonder at his follower. "Why, man, this is a nightmare of your own imagination."
"It may be so, master. If it is, no harm is done. I have laid out a few crowns uselessly, and there is an end of it. But if it should not be a nightmare, but a real positive danger, you would at least be prepared for it; and those few crowns may be the saving of our lives."
Philip walked up and down the room for some time.
"At any rate, Pierre, you have acted wisely. As you say, the cost is as nothing; and though my reason revolts against a belief in this nightmare of yours, I am not such a fool as to refuse to pay any attention to it. I know that you are no coward, and certainly not one to indulge in wild fancies.
"Let us go a step farther. Suppose that all this should turn out true, and that you, I, and--and some lady--are in disguise in the midst of a howling mob shouting, 'Death to the Huguenots!' What should we do next? Where should we go?
"It seems to me that your disguise for me is a badly chosen one. As a monk, how could I keep with you as a beggar, still less with a woman?"