ed his departure. What better way to dispose of him than
to let him go on a mad-cap journey? Besides, you must have forgotten
about the passes. How could you expect him to get by my sentinels? It
will attract less attention to have him stopped there than here."

All this, spoken brusquely, was accompanied by frank, insolent looks
which beneath their seeming openness concealed an intentness of purpose
and a shrewd penetration. Only the first abrupt change in the fool's
look, a slight one though it was, betrayed the jester to his caller.
In that swiftly passing gleam, as the free baron spoke of Austria, and
not of Spain, the other read full confirmation of what he desired to
know.

"He will do his best," commented the jester, carelessly.

"And man can do no more," retorted the king's guest. "Many a battle
has been thus bravely lost."

He had hoped to provoke from the _plaisant_ some further expression of
self-content in his plans for the future, but the other had become
guarded.

What if he offered the fool clemency? asked the princess' betrothed of
himself. If the jester had confidence in the future he would naturally
rather remain in the narrow confines of his dark chamber than consider
proposals from one whom he believed he would yet overcome. The free
baron began to enjoy this strategic duplicity of language; the
environing dangers lent zest to equivocation; the seduction of finding
himself more potent than forces antagonistic became intoxicating to his
egotism.

"Why," he said, patronizingly, surveying the slender figure of the
fool, "a good man should die by the sword rather than go to the
scaffold. What if I were to overlook Caillette and the rest? He is
harmless,"--more shrewdly; "let him go. As for the princess--well,
you're young; in the heyday for such nonsense. I have never yet
quarreled seriously with man for woman's sake. There are many graver
causes for contention--a purse, or a few acres of land; right royal
warfare. If I get the king to forgive you, and the princess to
overlook your offense, will you well and truthfully serve me?"

"Never!" answered the fool, promptly.

"He is sure the message will reach Charles in Spain," mentally
concluded the king's guest. "Yet," he continued aloud in a tone of
mockery, "you did not hesitate to betray your master yourself. Why,
then, will you not betray him to me?"

"To him I will answer, not to you," returned the jester, calmly.

A contemp