The King started slightly, looked wildly in the eyes that seemed to master him, and with a slight shiver took the handed cup, drained it, and uttered a low, deep sigh.
“Ah,” said Leoni, smiling in a peculiar way. “Now, gentlemen, the time has come for action. You, Saint Simon, be silent, and alert. There must be no bloodshed unless it is to save the Comte. You will come with us, and I shall depend upon your sword for our protection if there is peril in the way. You, Denis, boy,” he continued, turning to the young esquire, who stood looking on now with his lips apart and a strange feeling of misery and despair oppressing him, “you have your duty to perform.”
“Not to—” began Denis; but he was checked by the angry gesture the doctor made.
“Silence, sir! Your master’s work. Follow us outside, and remain there on guard. The Comte’s valise is ready. Never mind our own. Here, quick! Where is the cloak?”
Denis darted to a garde-robe and drew out the monarch’s cloak.
“That’s right. Throw it down there. You will now allow no one to pass in here, but stand on guard till we return. If we are not back here by the time the castle clock has chimed twice you will take the cloak and valise, go down the long corridor, if possible unseen, and make for the stables, where you will have the horses saddled at once.”
“But—”
“But!” snapped out Leoni. “They must be saddled. Quick! Slip off my pouch and gird it on. There is gold enough within, and if that will not move the people there you have your sword.”
Denis uttered a sigh of relief as he hastily unclasped the doctor’s belt, for this was work he felt that he could do.
The next minute he was following his companions across the ante-chamber, ready to close the door behind them and place himself on guard in a gloomy angle of the corridor, from whence as he watched them he saw their figures seem to glide along the lighted portion, the Comte yielding entirely to his leader’s every motion, till they passed quickly out of the sentry’s ken.