was indeed a thoroughbred, with the eye of a gerfalcon.

It repeated the same manoeuvre, rose diagonally after the heron, which
gave two or three cries of distress and strove to rise perpendicularly
as at first.

At the end of a few seconds the two birds seemed again about to
disappear. The heron looked no larger than a lark, and the falcon was a
black speck which every moment grew smaller.

Neither Charles nor his suite any longer followed the flight of the
birds. Each one stopped, his eyes fixed on the clouds.

"Bravo! Bravo! Iron-beak!" cried Charles, suddenly. "See, see,
gentlemen, he is uppermost! Haw! haw!"

"Faith, I can see neither of them," said Henry.

"Nor I," said Marguerite.

"Well, but if you cannot see them, Henry, you can hear them," said
Charles, "at least the heron. Listen! listen! he asks quarter!"

Two or three plaintive cries were heard which a practised ear alone
could detect.

"Listen!" cried Charles, "and you will see them come down more quickly
than they went up."

As the King spoke, the two birds reappeared. They were still only two
black dots, but from the size of the dots the falcon seemed to be
uppermost.

"See! see!" cried Charles, "Iron Beak has him!"

The heron, outwitted by the bird of prey, no longer strove to defend
itself. It descended rapidly, constantly struck at by the falcon, and
answered only by its cries. Suddenly it folded its wings and dropped
like a stone; but its adversary did the same, and when the fugitive
again strove to resume its flight a last blow of the beak finished it;
it continued to fall, turning over and over, and as it touched the earth
the falcon swooped down and uttered a cry of victory which drowned the
cry of defeat of the vanquished.

"To the falcon! the falcon!" shouted Charles, spurring his horse to the
place where the birds had fallen. But suddenly he reined in his steed,
uttered a cry, dropped his bridle, and grasping his horse's mane with
one hand pressed the other to his stomach as though he would tear out
his very vitals.

All the courtiers hastened to him.

"It is nothing, nothing," said Charles, with inflamed face and haggard
eye; "it seemed as if a red-hot iron were passing through me just now;
but forward! it is nothing."

And Charles galloped on.

D'Alencon turned pale.

"What now?" asked Henry of Marguerite.

"I do not know," replied she; "but did you see? My brother was purple in
the face."

"He is not usually so,"