But Rosny, whose business it was to know all things, had had dealings with Jean-aux-Choux.
"It is the Fool of the Three Henries!" he whispered, "a wise man, they say—bachelor of Geneva, a deacon at the trade of theology, and all that!"
"I see nothing for it," D'Aubigné interrupted drily, "but that we should agree to put all three Henries into motley, and set Jean-aux-Choux on the throne!"
"Speak your mind plainly, Jean-aux-Choux," cried Turenne peremptorily; "we are none of us of the Three Henries. And we will bear no fooling. What is your message to us—Sir Fool with the Death's Head? Out with it, and briefly."
Jean-aux-Choux waved his hand in the direction of the bridge of Gargilesse.
"Yonder—yonder," he said, "is your answer coming to you!"
Beyond the crowded roofs of the old town, thatched and tiled, the white track to Gargilesse and Croizant meandered amid the sparse and sunburnt vegetation of autumn. Sparks of light, stars seen at noonday, began to dance behind the little broomy knolls, where the pods were cracking open merrily in the heat of the sun.
"They are spears," cried the well-advised veterans of the south, men of the old Huguenot guard. "Who comes? None from that direction to do us any good!"
Then Rosny, who, in moments of action, could make every one afraid of him, with his fair skin and the false air of innocence on his face, in which two blue eyes strange and stern were set, rode up to the King and, bidding him leave ribbons and sashes to give his mind for a moment to sword-points, he indicated, without an unnecessary word, the cavalcade which approached from the south.
Henry of Navarre, who was never angered by a just rebuke, instantly left the ladies with whom he had been jesting, and jumping on horseback, rode right up to the top of a steep bank, which commanded the bridge by which the horsemen must cross.