"But I wish to have it exact," he protested. "Well, then, here it is," and again there was the cunning upward glance. "'That which you have brought give to him who waits; return then whence you came until the King writes a third time.' It is as plain as day, now that I have mastered the translation. I am he who waits; so now, Monsieur, give it to me and let me go."
Before he spoke I knew he was playing with me, and had no more Latinity in him than I had. For whatever quality the King had chosen him, it was not for that of a good liar. But the splendid audacity of the lie filled me with admiration, and that I might draw him to a greater fall I led him on a little.
"But what are your orders, or have you, too, a letter?"
"That," he answered, with just such a little smiling nod as I had given him, "is my affair, and between me and the King. Your own words! Come, Monsieur, give it to me, and let me go."
"It!" said I banteringly, for I was fool enough to play him further. "Is your Latin not rusty? And if it is rusty, may it not be wrong? Should your 'it' not be 'him'?"
"Him?" he repeated. "Him? What do you mean? By God! I have it! It's the boy upstairs—it's the little Count himself! Monsieur, Monsieur, you fly at high game, and I offer you my apologies; in some things you are not such a fool as I took you to be. To lead him like a pet lamb with a ribbon, and into his own town, too! No violence, no noise, nothing indiscreet! Monsieur, I could not have done as well myself. Can a man say more?"
"But the Latin?" said I. "What of the It, Master Scholar?"
"Who said It? Not I. That which you have brought, was what I said; That, That, not It, and That is the Count de Foix!"
"And I am to return whence I came?"
"So it seems, Monsieur, and I wish you joy when they find the boy does not return with you. I fear they'll hang you, faith of a gentleman! I fear they will."