estion to ask. Have you done that which you
were to do?"

The friar nodded his assent. "The fool will trouble the duke no more,"
he answered.

"Ah, he is"--began the soldier.

"Even so. And now pray let me pass."

"Yes; let him pass!" urged one of the soldiers. "Would you keep some
longing trollop waiting?"

The leader of the troopers did not answer; his glance was bent upon the
ground. "Yes, you may go," he commented, "when--" and suddenly thrust
forth an arm and pulled back the enshrouding cloak.

"The duke's fool!" he cried. "Close in, rogues! Let him not escape."

Fiercely the fool's hand sought his breast; then, swiftly realizing
that it needed but a pretext to bring about the end desired by the
pretender in the castle, with an effort he restrained himself, and
confronted his assailants, outwardly calm.

"'Tis a poor jest which fails," he said, easily.

"Jest!" grimly returned he of the red mustaches. "Call you it a jest,
this monk's disguise? Once on the horse, it would have been no jest,
and I'll warrant you would soon have left the castle far behind. Yes;
and but for the cloven foot, the jest, as you call it, would have
succeeded, too. Had it not been," he added, "for the pointed, silken
shoe, peeping out from beneath the holy robe--a covering of vanity,
instead of holy nakedness--you would certainly have deceived me,
and"--with a brusque laugh--"slipped away from your master, the duke."

"The duke?" said the jester, as casting the now useless cloak from him,
he deliberately scrutinized the rogue.

"The duke," returned the man, stolidly. "Well, this spoils our sport
for to-night, knaves," he went on, turning to the other troopers, "for
we must e'en escort the jester back to the castle."

"Beshrew him!" they answered, of one accord. "A plague upon him!"

And slowly the fool and the soldiers began to retrace their way across
the moon-lit fields, the trooper with the red mustaches grumbling as
they went: "Such luck to turn back now, with all those mad-caps right
under our nose! A curse to a dry march over a dusty meadow! An
unsanctified dog of a monk! 'Tis like a campaign, with naught but
ditch water to drink. The devil take the friar and the jester!
Forward! the fool in the center, and those he would have fooled around
him!"

And when they disappeared in the distance the gipsy woman might have
been seen leaving the house by the stable door and leading in the horse.

CHAPTE