ng needful. He desired
him also, should he know in the neighborhood any doctor or chirurgeon,
to fetch him, taking on himself the payment of the messenger.

The host, who saw two young noblemen, richly clad, promised everything
they required, and our two cavaliers, after seeing that preparations
for the reception were actually begun, started off again and proceeded
rapidly toward Greney.

They had gone rather more than a league and had begun to descry the
first houses of the village, the red-tiled roofs of which stood out from
the green trees which surrounded them, when, coming toward them mounted
on a mule, they perceived a poor monk, whose large hat and gray worsted
dress made them take him for an Augustine brother. Chance for once
seemed to favor them in sending what they were so assiduously seeking.
He was a man about twenty-two or twenty-three years old, but who
appeared much older from ascetic exercises. His complexion was pale,
not of that deadly pallor which is a kind of neutral beauty, but of a
bilious, yellow hue; his colorless hair was short and scarcely extended
beyond the circle formed by the hat around his head, and his light blue
eyes seemed destitute of any expression.

"Sir," began Raoul, with his usual politeness, "are you an
ecclesiastic?"

"Why do you ask me that?" replied the stranger, with a coolness which
was barely civil.

"Because we want to know," said De Guiche, haughtily.

The stranger touched his mule with his heel and continued his way.

In a second De Guiche had sprung before him and barred his passage.
"Answer, sir," exclaimed he; "you have been asked politely, and every
question is worth an answer."

"I suppose I am free to say or not to say who I am to two strangers who
take a fancy to ask me."

It was with difficulty that De Guiche restrained the intense desire he
had of breaking the monk's bones.

"In the first place," he said, making an effort to control himself,
"we are not people who may be treated anyhow; my friend there is the
Viscount of Bragelonne and I am the Count de Guiche. Nor was it from
caprice we asked the question, for there is a wounded and dying man who
demands the succor of the church. If you be a priest, I conjure you in
the name of humanity to follow me to aid this man; if you be not, it is
a different matter, and I warn you in the name of courtesy, of which
you appear profoundly ignorant, that I shall chastise you for your
insolence."

The pale face