Flinging a mocking laugh after the craven the troopers turned. But to meet with a surprise. By their horses' heads stood a strange man smiling at them. "I arrest all here!" he said quietly. He had nothing but a riding switch in his hand, and Villeneuve's eyes opened wide as he recognised in him the guest of the Tower Chamber. "In the King's name, lay down your arms!"
They stared at him as if he had fallen from the skies. Even Baptist lost the golden moment, and, in place of flinging himself upon the stranger, repeated, "Lay down our arms? Who, in the name of thunder, are you?"
"No matter!" the other answered. "You are surrounded, my man. See! And see!" He pointed in two directions with his switch.
Baptist glared through the bushes, and saw eight or ten horsemen posted along the hill-side above him. He looked across the brook, and there also were two or three stalwart figures, seated motionless in their saddles.
The others looked helplessly to Baptist. "Understand," he said, with uneasy defiance. "You will answer for this. We are the Captain of Vlaye's men!"
"I know naught of the Captain of Vlaye," was the stern reply. "Surrender, and your lives shall be spared. Resist, and your blood be on your own heads!"
Baptist counted heads rapidly, and saw that he was outnumbered. He gave the word, and after one fashion or another, some recklessly, some stolidly, the men threw down their arms. "Only--you will answer for this!" Baptist repeated.
"I shall answer for it," des Ageaux replied gravely. "In the meantime I desire a word with your prisoner. M. de Villeneuve, this way if you please."
He was proceeding to lead Charles a little apart. But his back had not been turned three seconds when a thing happened. The man who had slunk away before Baptist's challenge had got to horse unnoticed. At a little distance from the others, he had not surrendered his arms. Whether he could not from where he was see the horsemen who guarded the further side of the brook, and so thought escape in that direction open, or he could not resist the temptation to wreak his spite on Baptist at all risks, he chose this moment to ride up behind him, draw a pistol from the holster, and fire it into the unfortunate man's back. Then with a yell that echoed his victim's death-cry he crashed through the undergrowth in the direction of the brook.
But already, "Seize him! Seize him!" rose above the wood in a dozen voices. "On your life, seize him!"