"It is strange," muttered the Cardinal, "how these people will cheer for every one but me, yet I have done them more good than all the others put together. But come, unless the stars play me false, these same folk shall raise my name as high as the rest."
"Till the wind blows from a fresh quarter," I muttered, watching the hawker; and, indeed, it seemed to me that Mazarin, though a shrewd man, was striving for an empty honour.
However, there was little leisure for thinking just then; we walked on rapidly, turning to the right at the end of the Rue Croquin, and made our way through several side streets which were nearly deserted. After a long roundabout journey we approached the neighbourhood where Martin lived, when suddenly an officer whom I recognised as Roland Belloc stepped out from a hiding place.
"Have you posted your soldiers?" asked Mazarin quietly.
"Every avenue is guarded. No one can enter or leave the street unchallenged."
"The men are well out of sight?"
"It would take your Eminence a long time to discover them!" replied the veteran warrior smiling.
"That is well. People who saw them might be curious. There is nothing fresh going on yonder?" and he waved his hand in the direction of Martin's house.
"No, except that we arrived just in time to see Pillot going away."
"Did you secure him?"