a conflagration. Then the noise of steps and voices became lost in the
upper floors of the castle.

No one was then thinking of the king, who, leaning on his elbow at his
window, had sadly seen pass away all that light, and heard that noise
die off--no, not one, if it was not that unknown of the hostelry des
Medici, whom we have seen go out, enveloped in his cloak.

He had come straight up to the castle, and had, with his melancholy
countenance, wandered round and round the palace, from which the
people had not yet departed; and finding that no one guarded the great
entrance, or the porch, seeing that the soldiers of Monsieur were
fraternizing with the royal soldiers--that is to say swallowing
Beaugency at discretion, or rather indiscretion--the unknown penetrated
through the crowd, then ascended to the court, and came to the landing
of the staircase leading to the cardinal's apartment.

What, according to all probability, induced him to direct his steps that
way, was the splendor of the flambeaux, and the busy air of the pages
and domestics. But he was stopped short by a presented musket and the
cry of the sentinel.

"Where are you going, my friend?" asked the soldier.

"I am going to the king's apartment," replied the unknown, haughtily,
but tranquilly.

The soldier called one of his eminence's officers, who, in the tone
in which a youth in office directs a solicitor to a minister, let fall
these words: "The other staircase, in front."

And the officer, without further notice of the unknown, resumed his
interrupted conversation.

The stranger, without reply, directed his steps towards the staircase
pointed out to him. On this side there was no noise, there were no more
flambeaux.

Obscurity, through which a sentinel glided like a shadow; silence, which
permitted him to hear the sound of his own footsteps, accompanied with
the jingling of his spurs upon the stone slabs.

This guard was one of the twenty musketeers appointed for attendance
upon the king, and who mounted guard with the stiffness and
consciousness of a statue.

"Who goes there?" said the guard.

"A friend," replied the unknown.

"What do you want?"

"To speak to the king."

"Do you, my dear monsieur? That's not very likely."

"Why not?"

"Because the king has gone to bed."

"Gone to bed already?"

"Yes."

"No matter: I must speak to him."

"And I tell you that is impossible."

"And yet----"

"Go back!"

"Do you require t