place that
the King hitched forward his sword, and I begged him to permit the Swiss
to go on with us. This, however, he would not allow, and they were left
at the entrance to the court with orders to follow at a given signal.

On the steps the King, who, to disguise himself the better, had borrowed
one of my cloaks, stumbled and almost fell. This threw him into a fit of
laughter; for no sooner was he engaged in an adventure which promised
peril, than his spirits rose to such a degree as to make him the most
charming companion in danger man ever had. He was still shaking, and
pulling me to and fro in one of those boyish frolics which at times
swayed him, when a loud outcry inside the house startled us into
sobriety, and reminded us of the business which brought us thither.

Wondering what it might mean, I was for rapping on the door with my
hilt. But the King put me aside, and, by a happy instinct, tried the
latch. The door yielded to his hand, and gave us admittance.

We found ourselves in a gloomy hall, ill-lit, and hung with patched
arras. In one corner stood a group of servants. Of these some looked
scared and some amused, but all were so much taken up with the movements
of a harsh-faced woman, who was pacing the opposite side of the hall,
that they did not heed our entrance. A glance showed me that the woman
was Madame Nicholas; but I was still at a loss to guess what she was
doing or what was happening in the house.

I stood a moment, and then finding that in her excitement she took no
notice of us, I beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his
mistress that a gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the
message; but she sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at
him so violently that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it
appeared that the object of her attention was a door at that side of the
hall; for, stopping suddenly in her walk, she went up to it, and struck
on it passionately and repeatedly with her hands.

"Come out!" she cried. "Come out, you villain! Your friends shall not
save you!"

Restraining the King, I went forward myself, and, saluting her, begged a
word with her apart, thinking that she would recognize me.

Her answer showed that she did not. "No!" she cried, waving me off, in
the utmost excitement. "No; you will not get me away! You will not! I
know your tricks. You are as bad one as the other, and shield one
another come what will!" Then turning again