rror affixed to the door of the travelling house.

He was standing thus, the gentle Rhodomont babbled aimlessly at his
side, when his ears caught the sound of hooves. He looked over his
shoulder carelessly, and then stood frozen, with uplifted comb and
loosened mouth. Away across the common, on the road that bordered it, he
beheld a party of seven horsemen in the blue coats with red facings of
the marechaussee.

Not for a moment did he doubt what was the quarry of this prowling
gendarmerie. It was as if the chill shadow of the gallows had fallen
suddenly upon him.

And then the troop halted, abreast with them, and the sergeant leading
it sent his bawling voice across the common.

"Hi, there! Hi!" His tone rang with menace.

Every member of the company--and there were some twelve in all--stood at
gaze. Pantaloon advanced a step or two, stalking, his head thrown back,
his manner that of a King's Lieutenant.

"Now, what the devil's this?" quoth he, but whether of Fate or Heaven or
the sergeant, was not clear.

There was a brief colloquy among the horsemen, then they came trotting
across the common straight towards the players' encampment.

Andre-Louis had remained standing at the tail of the travelling
house. He was still passing the comb through his straggling hair,
but mechanically and unconsciously. His mind was all intent upon the
advancing troop, his wits alert and gathered together for a leap in
whatever direction should be indicated.

Still in the distance, but evidently impatient, the sergeant bawled a
question.

"Who gave you leave to encamp here?"

It was a question that reassured Andre-Louis not at all. He was not
deceived by it into supposing or even hoping that the business of these
men was merely to round up vagrants and trespassers. That was no part of
their real duty; it was something done in passing--done, perhaps, in the
hope of levying a tax of their own. It was very long odds that they
were from Rennes, and that their real business was the hunting down of
a young lawyer charged with sedition. Meanwhile Pantaloon was shouting
back.

"Who gave us leave, do you say? What leave? This is communal land, free
to all."

The sergeant laughed unpleasantly, and came on, his troop following.

"There is," said a voice at Pantaloon's elbow, "no such thing as
communal land in the proper sense in all M. de La Tour d'Azyr's vast
domain. This is a terre censive, and his bailiffs collect his dues from
a