"You will ruin us all, you will ruin us all!" cried a voice from behind, which I found afterward came from the well-known Chicot. "If you convert Monsieur de Cerons, and bring him into our camp, the army's lost, the king's throne shaken, and he may play at bowls with the globe and crown. Why, heavens and earth! wasn't it bad enough when we had only Martigue to lead us into every mad adventure, while the Huguenots had this mad fellow to run his head against our crack-brained galloper! If you bring, over another such to our side to match Martigue, the army will be like a string between two young dogs, pulled here and there over every bush, and hill, and fence, through the whole land. 'Pon my soul, I had hoped and trusted that I should hear Martigue had been killed to-day; for I am tired to death, and my brain quite weary with thinking where he will be next: but if you come to add to him this same night-walking spectre of cast iron, there is no chance of any one ever having a moment's repose through life."
"Pray attend to Chicot's reasons, your highness," said Martigue; "for, like some old verses that I've met with, they always read the wrong way, you know."
"Well," said the prince, "if you will all have it so, so it must be, I suppose; but, at all events, I shall expect no slight apology from Monsieur de Cerons for the rash and insolent words he addressed to me this morning."
"I trust, sir," I replied, "That in my grief for the disasters of this day, I have not been mad enough to address to your highness, the brother of my king, any words of insolence whatever. I am quite ignorant and unconscious of having done so, but beg your highness's pardon most sincerely and most humbly for anything that could have been construed to that effect."
"That is well, that is well," replied the duke: "you must indeed have forgotten yourself; but the words that you spoke, sir, about the Prince de Condé, were rash and insolent."
"But were never applicable to your highness," I replied. "They were entirely and totally meant for and pointed at the Baron de Montesquieu, the cold-blooded murderer of a gallant prince; and I am sure, sir, that, had you seen the act as I did, your generous nature would have been roused in a moment to avenge the butchery of your cousin upon his foul assassin."
"Perhaps I might," replied the prince: but the Duke of Montpensier, who knew that such discussions with the Duke of Anjou became dangerous in every point of view when carried too far, took advantage of a slight thoughtful pause to say, "I think your highness graciously granted my request."
The prince bowed his head, and Montpensier, passing round the table, took me by the arm, nodding to Martigue, who replied, if I might read his looks, "Get him away as fast as you can."
The prince, however, detained us for a moment longer, saying, "I will speak to Monsieur de Cerons at some future time: his countenance pleases me."
"No reply," whispered the Duke of Montpensier; and, merely bowing my head low as my answer, I followed the duke through the door. In that little passage antechamber, however, my first step was into a pool of dark blood, and I was about to draw back with an exclamation, when the duke pulled me on sharply by the left arm; and after we had got several paces down the gallery, he said, in a low, deep tone,