after the interests of a certain important numeral with some
care.

"Caumont," said the King of Navarre, "how came you to know I was in this
town? I arrived but an hour ago, and in disguise."

"Our spies are better than Your Majesty's," smiled the Duke. "Your true
Calvinist is something too stiff in the backbone to make a capable
informer. You ought to employ a few supple Politiques, accustomed to
palace backstairs. But, on this occasion, I acknowledge I was favoured
by circumstances. For I have with me the daughter of Francis the Scot,
called Francis d'Agneau, born, I believe, of a Norman house long
established in Scotland near to the Gulf of Solway. Among the
saddle-bags of the damsel's pony, hastily concealed by other hands than
her own (I suspect a certain red-haired fool), there was found a series
of letters written by Your Majesty, which, in case they might fall into
worse hands, I have the honour of returning to you. Also we found an
appointment for this very night, to meet with Francis the Scot at the
town of Blois in the house of Anthony Arpajon! Your Majesty has, as the
Leaguers know, a habit of uncomfortable punctuality in the keeping of
your trysts. So I have availed me of that to confide the letters and the
maid to you, together with a good Doctor of the Sorbonne, one who has
done you no mean service to the honest cause in that wasps' nest--so
good, indeed, that if he went back, the Leaguers of his own hive would
sting him to death. Therefore I commit them all to you! Only the young
man I would gladly keep by me. But that shall be as Your Majesty
judges."

"No, no," cried the King. "I must have my cousin, if only to look after.
If the Leaguers get hold of him, he might gain a throne, indeed, but
assuredly he would lose his head. He is a fine lad, and will do very
well in the fighting line when Rosny has licked him a little into
shape! But I am truly grateful to you, D'Epernon. And in the good times
to come, I shall have better ways of proving my gratitude than here, in
the house of Anthony Arpajon and in the guise of a carter."

This was all that D'Epernon had been waiting for, and he promptly bowed
himself out. The instant the Duke was through the door, the Bearnais
turned to the little circle of his immediate followers.

"Who of you knows the town and Chateau of Blois? It might be worth while
following the fellow, just to see if any treachery be in the wind. It
may be I do him wrong. If so, I shall