"Yes, Monsieur de Cerons," he replied, "I did not like to disturb you, because the attendant tells me you have had a bad night; but, as you are awake, I may as well ask you if there is anything that I can do for you this morning, as I am going with the rest of the officers to the field of battle, to see the loss on either side, and to make arrangements in regard to the wounded and the dead. I fear that you must, like most of us, have some friend there."
"Several, I doubt not, my lord," I replied; "but, of course, my principal care must be for my own people. Should you find among the prisoners or the wounded any men belonging to my band, I trust you will have them kindly treated for my sake. There is one poor lad, indeed, for whom I am anxious to make inquiries. He is named Andriot, and followed me to the field, not as a man-at-arms, but merely as an attendant; he fell upon the slope of the hill, about half a mile from Triac, in face of Monsieur de Brissac's arquebusiers."
"I will not fail to make inquiries for him," replied the prince, "and for the others also; and I will report to you, as soon as I return, what has been done. It may be late, however, before I come back; and, in the mean time, I understand the surgeon has left especial orders that you should not quit your bed on any account whatever."
I would fain have risen, but the prince insisted so strongly upon my obeying the surgeon's commands to the letter, that I promised him to do so, and soon found the benefit of yielding to better knowledge than my own.
After remaining for an hour, or somewhat more, in sorrowful but more tranquil thoughts than during the preceding evening I had been able to obtain, exhaustion and weakness again brought on sleep, but of a far more calm and beneficial character; and, till nearly four o'clock in the evening, I enjoyed a long lapse of peaceful slumber.
At length I awoke, and found a servant still with me, with whom I talked for some time on the rumours of the day, and found, much to my satisfaction, that a large force of Protestants occupied Cognac, and that the rest of the army had effected its retreat in complete safety to the town of Sainctes. Very few prisoners were said to have been taken, and the whole baggage of the Protestant army had, it seems, been saved. The attendant, however, spoke confidently of Cognac being attacked the next day; talked of the Protestant cause as utterly ruined and hopeless, and exalted the virtues, skill, and courage of the Duke of Anjou to the very skies. Remembering the warning I had received on the preceding night, I made no reply, but only asked questions, to which he very willingly returned an answer.
In the midst of our conversation, however, I heard irregular footfalls without, as if of some lame person approaching the chamber, and in a moment or two after, not a little to my satisfaction, poor Andriot hobbled in, supporting himself upon a stick. The same ball, it seems, which had killed his horse, had wounded him also in the leg; and though the man was by no means a coward, and, I believe, was perfectly insensible of anything like nervous agitation, he avoided from that moment every scene of strife, declaring deliberately that wounds in the leg were not comfortable.
I was visited on the same night by the Prince d'Auvergne, and on the following day was permitted to rise, and spent an hour in the morning with the Duke of Montpensier. The duke and his son both showed me the greatest kindness; but there was not the slightest word said about admitting me to ransom, and I remarked that the subject was carefully avoided. In the evening, my horses and the grooms I had sent for arrived, together with the money and a letter from Moric Endem, which was couched in the following terms:
"Monseigneur,
"I have never seen any one comport himself better in a hot mêlée than you did yesterday, which must console you for being taken prisoner and for having to pay a ransom, which is always, of course, the most unpleasant thing that can happen to any gentleman adventurer. I dare say, for a gentleman of your kidney, it would have been pleasanter, take it upon the whole, to be killed outright by the side of our brave prince. I have often heard gentlemen--that is to say--young gentlemen, say such things; but I never could manage to feel anything of the kind myself, always looking upon a live ass to be a great deal better than a dead lion. I have not the slightest doubt, therefore, that some time or another hereafter you will find it a very comfortable thing indeed to be alive; and you will have the advantage, too, of being able to get yourself killed another time in case you like it.