ere is more likely to be a good
half-dozen of your countrymen of the Scottish Guard, each with a dagger
in his right hand."

As it happened, there was a round dozen, but not of the Scottish
archers.

D'Epernon--than whom no one could be more courteous, in a large, deft,
half-scornful way--stooped to kiss Claire's hand under the spitting
anger of the Abbe John's eyes.

"A good evening and a better daybreak," said D'Epernon. "I would escort
you to Angouleme, my pretty maiden, to bide under the care of my wife,
were it not that you might be worse off there. The last time my Lady
Duchess went for a walk, our good Leaguers of the town held a knife to
her throat under the battlements for half-a-day, bidding her call upon
me to surrender the castle on pain of instant death. What, think you,
said Margaret of Foix? 'Kill me if you like,' says she, 'and much good
may it do you and your League. But tell Jean Louis, my husband, that if
he yields one jot to such rascals as you, to save my life twenty times
over--I--will never kiss him again'!"

"I should like to know your wife, my lord," said Claire; "she must be a
brave woman."

"I know another!" D'Epernon answered, bowing courteously.

Then, after the great man was gone, the party about Dame Granier's fire
sat silent, looking uncertainly at one another in the dull red glow,
which gave the strange face of Jean-aux-Choux, bordered by its tussock
of orange-saffron hair, the look of having been dipped in blood.

Then, without a word, the Fool of the Three Henries took down his
wallet, stuck the long sheath of a dagger under his black-and-white
baldrick, and strode out into the night.

His vow was upon him.

"I will betake me to my chamber," said the Professor of Eloquence, "and
pray to be forgiven for the thought of blood which leaped up in my heart
when this proud man came to the door."

"And I," said Claire, "because I am very sleepy."

She said good-night a little coldly to John d'Albret. At least, so he
thought, and was indeed ill-content thereat.

"I am not permitted to fight in a good hard-stricken battle," he
murmured. "I cannot bring my mind to rank assassination--for this,
however my Lord of Epernon may wrap it up, means no less. And yonder
vixen of a girl will not even let me hold her coloured threads when she
broiders a petticoat!"

But without a doubt or a qualm Jean-aux-Choux went to find Hamilton of
the Scots Guard and to perform his vow.

*