"What, Francis Agnew's daughter?" The King's voice grew suddenly kingly.
Jean nodded.
"Then he is dead—my Scot—my friend? When? How? Out with it, man!"
"The Leaguers or the King's Swiss shot him dead the Day of the Barricades—I know not which, but one or the other!"
The fine gracious lines of the King's face hardened. The Bearnais lifted his "boina," or flat white cap, which he had resumed at the close of worship, as was his right.
"They shall pay for this one day," he said; "Valois, King, and Duke of Guise—what is it they sing? Something about
'The Cardinal and Henry and Mayenne, Mayenne!'
If I read the signs of the times aright, the King of France will do Henry of Guise's business one of these days, while I shall have Mayenne on my hands. At any rate, poor Francis Agnew shall not go unavenged, wag the world as it will."
These were not the highest ideals of the Nazarene. But they suited a warring Church, and Henry of Navarre only voiced what was the feeling of all, from D'Aubigné the warrior to the pastor who sat in a corner by himself, thumbing his little Geneva Bible. There was no truce in this war. The League or the Bearnais! Either of the two must rule France. The present king, Henry of Valois, was a merry, sulky, careless, deceitful, kindly, cruel cipher—the "man-woman," as they named him, the "gamin"-king. He laughed and jested—till he could safely thrust his dagger into his enemy's back. But as for his country, he could no more govern it than a puppet worked by strings.
"And this girl?" said the King, "is she of her father's brood, strong for the religion, and so forth?"