"Nay, my lord," replied De Montigni with a slight smile, "You have no right to blame me for my bungling. I fired my pistol; that is enough, though I will own, I am glad to see you uninjured."
"Well, Monsieur de Montigni," rejoined the Duke, "all I know is, that if my horse had not risen to the leap before there was any need, you would now be lying on that grass; and I am very sure that I saw you turn your pistol to the right, or I might have been lying there instead. Confess the fact; is it not so?"
"You must excuse me, Sir," replied De Montigni gravely. "I fired to the best of my judgment; but whatever be your feelings towards me, I am well satisfied that France will not have to reproach me with the death of one of her most gallant Princes, nor the King for having deprived him of one who, I trust, will one day be one of his most faithful subjects. But I must stop this blood, for it is staining all my collar. Had your shot been but two inches to the right, there would have been no need of surgeons."
"I am glad it was not," said Nemours frankly; and, both having dismounted, De Montigni took some of the water from the little cut in the meadow, and washed away the gore from his face.
"Stay, stay," cried the Duke, producing some lint. "I have always some of this about me when I go to the field; and it will soon staunch the blood."
With his own hands he aided to dress the wound which he had made; and they were still thus employed, when a man, dressed in peaceful attire as it was considered in that day--though his apparel consisted of a stout buff coat, a slouched hat, wide crimson breeches, a pair of enormous jack boots, a sword and dagger--rode up, mounted on a strong grey charger. Over his shoulders, suspended by a leathern strap, hung a trumpet ornamented with a banner of the arms of France; and drawing in his rein at the distance of about twenty yards from the two gentlemen, as he was passing on towards the high road, he exclaimed, "Ha, ha, Messieurs, it is a pity, I think, that I was not here some ten minutes earlier. I could have sounded the charge."
"We have done very well without you, my good friend," replied the Duke; "but you seem a trumpet from Henry of Bourbon. What is your errand?"
"That I shall tell to those whom I am sent to," answered the trumpeter.
"Pray who may they be?" demanded Nemours.
"Monsieur de la Bourdasière, and his Highness, the Duke of Nemours," answered the trumpeter. "I shall find them both in Chartres, I suppose?"