hrough and through with 'Monsieur la Chose'
(so he named his sword), which he declared to be the peer and overlord
of any king in Christendie!"

"That would be the Marshal d'Aumont," said Mariana, after a pause.
"Well, and so these three waited there, on the bridge, did they?"

"Ay, I warrant. I was at their elbow, as I say," quoth Jean-aux-Choux,
"on the bridge called the 'Pont de la Motte.' And presently there came
in sight a cloud of dust, and out of the cloud galloping horses, with
one that rode in front. And there were spear-heads that glinted, and
musket-barrels, and swords with dinted scabbards. And the armour of
these men was all tashed, and their helms like to a piece of lead that
one has smitten with a hammer long and long."

"Battered armour is the worn breviary of the soldier!" commented
Mariana. "Had these horsemen white scarves belting them?"

"Each man of them!" Jean-aux-Choux answered. "But even he that rode at
the head had his armour (so much of it as he wore) in a like state; but
whereas all the others rode with plain steel helms, there was a white
plume in his. Those who stood near called it his panache, and said it
was miracle-working. Also he wore a cloak, like that of a
night-sentinel, but underneath, his doublet and hose were of olive-green
velvet. He was of a hearty countenance, robust of body, and rode
gallantly, with his head thrown back, laughing at little things by the
way--as when a court page-boy, all in cloth of gold, fell off the tree
on which he had climbed to see the show, and had to be pulled out of the
river, dripping and weeping, with a countryman's rake all tangled in the
hinder breadths of his raiment."

"The Bearnais! To a hair!" cried the Jesuit. "Ah, what a man! What a
man--if only he were on the side of Holy Church----"

"He is a heretic of heretics," said the Surintendant Temel, "and
deserves only the flames and the yellow robe!"

"It is a pity," said Mariana, with a certain contempt for such
intolerance of idea; "you would have found him an equally good man in
your father's wheat-field, and I, at the King's council. One day he will
give our Philip tit-for-tat--that is, if he live so long!"

"Which God forbid!" said the inquisitor.

"Amen!" assented Frey Tullio.

"Well," smiled Mariana, "there is no pleasing you. For me, there are
many sorts of gallant men, but with you, a man must either swallow all
the Council of Trent, or be food for flames."

The inquisitors w