The order was executed almost as soon as uttered. As the horse leaping the water alighted on the lower bank, it swerved to avoid a trooper who barred the way. The turn surprised the rider; he lost his balance. Before he could get back into his seat, a trooper knocked him from the saddle with the flat of his sword. In a trice he was seized, disarmed, and dragged across the brook.
But by that time Baptist, with three slugs under his shoulder-blade, lay still among the moss and briars, the hand that had beaten time to a thousand camp-ditties in a thousand quarters from Fontarabie to Flanders flung nerveless beside a wood-wren's nest. As they gathered round him Charles, who had never seen a violent death, gazed on the limp form with a pale face, questioning, with that wonder which the thoughtful of all times have felt, whither the mind that a minute before looked from those sightless eyes had taken its flight.
He was roused by the Lieutenant's voice, speaking in tones measured and stern as fate. "Let him have five minutes," he said, "and then--that tree will be best!"
They began to drag the wretch, now pale as ashes, in the direction indicated. Half way to the tree the man began to struggle, breaking into piercing shrieks that he was Vlaye's man, that they had no right----
"Stay, right he shall have!" des Ageaux cried solemnly. "He is judged and doomed by me, Governor of Périgord, for murder in Curia. In the King's name! Now take him!"
The wretch was dragged off, his judge to all appearance deaf to his cries. But Charles could close neither his ears nor his heart. The man had earned his doom richly. But to stand by while a fellow-creature, vainly shrieking for mercy, mercy, was strangled within his hearing, turned him sick and faint.
Des Ageaux read his thoughts. "To spare here were to kill there," he said coldly. "Learn, my friend, that to rule men is no work for a soft heart or a gentle hand. But you are shaken. Come this way," he continued in a different tone; "you will be the better for some wine." He took out a flask and gave it to Charles, who, excessively thirsty now he thought of it, drank greedily. "That is better," des Ageaux went on, seeing the colour return to his cheeks. "Now I wish for information. Where are the nearest Crocans?"
The young man's face fell. "The nearest Crocans?" he muttered mechanically.
"Yes."
"I----"