ng of the future!" cried Pare.
"Honest men can have but one motto: _Fais ce que dois, advienne que
pourra_!--do thy duty, come what will. That is what I did at the siege
of Calais when I put my foot on the face of the Duc de Guise,--I ran the
risk of being strangled by his friends and his servants; but to-day I am
surgeon to the king; moreover I am of the Reformed religion; and yet the
Guises are my friends. I shall save the king," cried the surgeon, with
the sacred enthusiasm of a conviction bestowed by genius, "and God will
save France!"

A knock was heard on the street door and presently one of Pare's
servants gave a paper to Lecamus, who read aloud these terrifying
words:--

"A scaffold is being erected at the convent of the Recollets: the
Prince de Conde will be beheaded there to-morrow."

Ambroise and Lecamus looked at each other with an expression of the
deepest horror.

"I will go and see it for myself," said the furrier.

No sooner was he in the open street than Ruggiero took his arm and asked
by what means Ambroise Pare proposed to save the king. Fearing some
trickery, the old man, instead of answering, replied that he wished to
go and see the scaffold. The astrologer accompanied him to the place des
Recollets, and there, truly enough, they found the carpenters putting up
the horrible framework by torchlight.

"Hey, my friend," said Lecamus to one of the men, "what are you doing
here at this time of night?"

"We are preparing for the hanging of heretics, as the blood-letting at
Amboise didn't cure them," said a young Recollet who was superintending
the work.

"Monseigneur the cardinal is very right," said Ruggiero, prudently; "but
in my country we do better."

"What do you do?" said the young priest.

"We burn them."

Lecamus was forced to lean on the astrologer's arm, for his legs gave
way beneath him; he thought it probable that on the morrow his son would
hang from one of those gibbets. The poor old man was thrust between two
sciences, astrology and surgery, both of which promised him the life of
his son, for whom in all probability that scaffold was now erecting. In
the trouble and distress of his mind, the Florentine was able to knead
him like dough.

"Well, my worthy dealer in minever, what do you say now to the Lorraine
jokes?" whispered Ruggiero.

"Alas! you know I would give my skin if that of my son were safe and
sound."

"That is talking like your trade," said the Italian; "b