"That you shall send over a physician to good old Clement Tournon, whom I have left ill at Ners."
"Ah!" said Richelieu. "Is he at Ners? That is most lucky. That man Morini said truly. Fortune goes with you. He may help me to raise the money, so that there may be no delay; for you must know, Master Langdale, that even kings and prime ministers, when they carry on expensive wars, sometimes come to the end of their finances at the very moment when large sums are most necessary. Clement Tournon: he is connected with all the goldsmiths of Nismes, is he not?"
"I heard him say on the journey that he had a number of friends there, and also in Avignon," replied Edward.
"It will do," said Richelieu. "Your second condition is granted. What is the third?"
"That your Eminence lends me a fresh horse, for my own is knocked up. I could wish also that I had some servant with me,—some one who knows the way."
"The horse you shall have," said Richelieu; "but as for the servant," he continued, thoughtfully, "I think you must go alone. I do not wish to send any Frenchman to that camp. Nay, more: nobody must know where you are going. Look at this map. This is the road." And he pointed with his finger to a map of the Cevennes. "First you go there,—to St. Martin,—then on to Mas Dieu. There you must inquire where the duke is encamped. I think it is somewhere near St. Andeal; but you will soon learn."
He ceased, and fell into a fit of thought; and, after waiting two or three minutes, Edward inquired, "And what am I to say to him? or will your Eminence write?"
"No, I will negotiate no more," answered Richelieu. "Say to him I have received his message; and I answer, 'One hundred thousand crowns in money, in four days, on the conditions expressed before;' and I wish his answer, Yes or No, before mid-day to-morrow."
"One horse will not carry me there and back—if it be forty miles—in that time over those mountains," said Edward.
"Pshaw! Kill the horse and buy another!" exclaimed Richelieu. "It is worth ten horses for me to have the news to-morrow. Stay; you must have some credence."