make the explanations which I am sure that he has it
in his power to make. Yesterday morning, therefore, I sent to him."

"And he is here?" I said drily.

Parabere admitted with a blush that he was not. His messenger had
found Bareilles on the point of starting against a band of plunderers
who had ravaged the country for a twelvemonth. He had sent me the
most; civil messages therefore--but he had not come. "However, he will
be at Gueret to-morrow," Parabere added cheerfully.

"Will he?" I said.

"I will answer for it," he answered. "In the meantime, he has done
what he can for our comfort."

"How?" I said,

"He bids us not to attempt the last three leagues to Gueret to-night;
the road is too bad. But to stay at Saury, where there is a good inn,
and to-morrow morning he will meet us there."

"If the brigands have not proved too much for him," I said.

"Yes," Parabere answered, with a simplicity almost supernatural. "To be
sure."

After this, it was no use to say anything to him, though his
officiousness would have justified the keenest reproaches. I swallowed
my resentment, therefore, and we went on amicably enough, though the
valley of the Creuse, in its upper and wilder part, through which our
road now wound, offered no objects of a kind to soften my anger against
the governor. I saw enough of ruins, of blocked defiles, and overgrown
roads; but of returning prosperity and growing crops, and the King's
peace, I saw no sign--not so much as one dead robber.

About noon we alighted to eat a little at a wretched tavern by one of
the innumerable fords. A solitary traveller who was here before us,
and for a time kept aloof, wearing a grand and mysterious manner with a
shabby coat, presently moved; edging himself up to me where I sat a
little apart, eating with Parabere and my gentlemen.

"Sir," he said, on a sudden and without preface, "I see that you are
the leader of this party."

As I was more plainly dressed than Parabere, and had been giving no
orders, I wondered how he knew; but I answered, without any remark,
"Well, sir; and what of that?"

"You are in great danger," he replied.

"I?" I said.

"Yes, sir; you!" he answered.

"You know me?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not I," he said, "but those who speak by
me. Enough that you are in danger."

"From what?" I asked sceptically; while my companions stared, and the
troopers and servants, who were just within hearing, listened
open-