dropped here might ruin all. We must go and
find Lord Winter."

They both set off to the other end of the camp, but as it did not cover
more than a surface of five hundred feet they quickly arrived at the
tent they were looking for.

"Tony, is your master sleeping?" said one of the two cavaliers to a
servant who was lying in the outer compartment, which served as a kind
of ante-room.

"No, monsieur le comte," answered the servant, "I think not; or at least
he has not long been so, for he was pacing up and down for more than two
hours after he left the king, and the sound of his footsteps has only
ceased during the last ten minutes. However, you may look and see,"
added the lackey, raising the curtained entrance of the tent.

Lord Winter was seated near an aperture, arranged as a window to let in
the night air, his eyes mechanically following the course of the moon,
intermittently veiled, as we before observed, by heavy clouds. The two
friends approached Winter, who, with his head on his hands, was gazing
at the heavens; he did not hear them enter and remained in the same
attitude till he felt a hand upon his shoulder.

He turned around, recognized Athos and Aramis and held out his hand to
them.

"Have you observed," said he to them, "what a blood-red color the moon
has to-night?"

"No," replied Athos; "I thought it looked much the same as usual."

"Look, again, chevalier," returned Lord Winter.

"I must own," said Aramis, "I am like the Comte de la Fere--I can see
nothing remarkable about it."

"My lord," said Athos, "in a position so precarious as ours we must
examine the earth and not the heavens. Have you studied our Scotch
troops and have you confidence in them?"

"The Scotch?" inquired Winter. "What Scotch?"

"Ours, egad!" exclaimed Athos. "Those in whom the king has
confided--Lord Leven's Highlanders."

"No," said Winter, then he paused; "but tell me, can you not perceive
the russet tint which marks the heavens?"

"Not the least in the world," said Aramis and Athos at once.

"Tell me," continued Winter, always possessed by the same idea, "is
there not a tradition in France that Henry IV., the evening before
the day he was assassinated, when he was playing at chess with M. de
Bassompiere, saw clots of blood upon the chessboard?"

"Yes," said Athos, "and the marechal has often told me so himself."

"Then it was so," murmured Winter, "and the next day Henry IV. was
killed."

"But what has thi