"It is all, monsieur. Ayez pitié, monsieur."
"Gag him," said St. Georges to Boussac, "and let us go."
So they left the fellow gagged and bound, and rode on once more upon their road, passing swiftly through Aignay-le-Duc without stopping.
"For," said St. Georges, "badly as we want rest, we must not halt here. To-morrow those dead men will be found, with, perhaps, another added to their number if the frost is great to-night, as it seems like to be. We must push on for Chatillon now, even though we ride all night. Pray Heaven our horses do not drop on the road!"
So through Aignay-le-Duc they went, clattering up the one wretched street, their animals' hoofs waking peasants from their early slumbers, and the jangling of their scabbards and steel trappings arousing the whole village. Even the guet de nuit—who because it was his duty to be awake was always asleep—was roused by the sound of the oncoming hoofs, and, rushing to his cabin door, cried out, "Who goes there?"
"Chevau-léger en service du roi," cried St. Georges; and "Mousquetaire de la maison du roi," answered Boussac; and so, five minutes later, they had passed the hamlet and were once more on their road north.
"Yet," said St. Georges as, stopping to breathe their horses, he opened the cloak and gazed on his sleeping child, "I would give much to know who our enemy is—who the cruel wretch who aimed at your innocent little life. 'A young man with a fair beard and gray eyes!' the ruffian said. Who, who is he?"
And, bending over, he brushed her lips with his great mustache.
"My darling," he whispered, "I pray God that all attacks on you may be thwarted as was this one to-night; that he may raise up for you always so stout and true a protector as he who rides by my side."
"Amen!" muttered Boussac, who among his good qualities did not find himself overwhelmed with modesty. "Amen! Though," he exclaimed a second after, "he who would not fight for such an innocent as that deserves never to have one of his own."