that lay between this remote valley and
Auch, I recalled the Cardinal's warning that if I failed in my attempt I
should be little likely to trouble Paris again.

The lout by the window paid no attention to me; nor I to him, when I
had once satisfied myself that he was really what he seemed to be.
But by-and-by two or three men--rough, uncouth fellows--dropped in to
reinforce the landlord, and they, too seemed to have no other business
than to sit in silence looking at me, or now and again to exchange a
word in a PATOIS of their own. By the time my supper was ready, the
knaves numbered six in all; and, as they were armed to a man with huge
Spanish knives, and made it clear that they resented my presence in
their dull rustic fashion--every rustic is suspicious--I began to think
that, unwittingly, I had put my head into a wasps' nest.

Nevertheless, I ate and drank with apparent appetite; but little that
passed within the circle of light cast by the smoky lamp escaped me. I
watched the men's looks and gestures at least as sharply as they watched
mine; and all the time I was racking my wits for some mode of disarming
their suspicions, or failing that, of learning something more of the
position, which far exceeded in difficulty and danger anything that I
had expected. The whole valley, it would seem, was on the look-out to
protect my man!

I had purposely brought with me from Auch a couple of bottles of choice
Armagnac; and these had been carried into the house with my saddle bags.
I took one out now and opened it and carelessly offered a dram of the
spirit to the landlord. He took it. As he drank it, I saw his face
flush; he handed back the cup reluctantly, and on that hint I offered
him another, The strong spirit was already beginning to work, and he
accepted, and in a few minutes began to talk more freely and with less
of the constraint which had before marked us all. Still, his tongue ran
chiefly on questions--he would know this, he would learn that; but even
this was a welcome change. I told him openly whence I had come, by what
road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where; and so far I satisfied
his curiosity. Only, when I came to the subject of my visit to
Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at business in
Spain and friends across the border, and this and that; in this way
giving the peasants to understand, if they pleased, that I was in the
same interest as their exiled master.

They took the