It was Lord Wentworth, the governor, although, relying upon the reinforcements for which he had sent to Dover as being sure to arrive on the morrow, he had retired to his own house, hoping to obtain some rest.
He had not slept, in truth, for three days, exposing himself continually, it must be said, at the points of greatest danger with untiring gallantry, and was always to be found wherever his presence was required.
On the evening of January 4 he had paid a visit to the breach of the Old Château, had personally posted the sentinels, and had reviewed the civic militia, who were intrusted with the simple duty of defending the Risbank fort.
But notwithstanding his intense weariness, and although everything was secure and quiet, he could not sleep.
A vague dread, absurd but not to be driven away, kept his eyes wide open as he lay on his bed.
Yet all his precautions were well taken; the enemy could not possibly venture upon a night attack, relying upon so trifling a breach as that in the Old Château. As for the other points, they would protect themselves with the aid of the swamp and the ocean.
Lord Wentworth said all this to himself a thousand times, and yet he could not sleep.
He seemed to feel something floating in the night air about the city which told him of a terrible danger from an invisible foe.
In his disordered fancy that enemy was not Maréchal Strozzi, nor the Duc de Nevers; it was not even the great François do Guise.
What! Could it be that it was his former prisoner, whom his bitter enmity had enabled him to recognize several times in the distance from the summit of the fortifications? Was it really that madman. Vicomte d'Exmès, Madame de Castro's lover?