and it is the Port St.
Denis that our Armagnacs will be guarding. Now I speak as a man of
peace, for that is my calling. But how would it be if your hundred men
and Norman set forth in the dark, and lay hid not very far from the St.
Denis Gate? Then some while after the lighting of the bale-fires from
the windmill, to be lit when the English set on, make straight for the
gate, and cry, 'St. George for England!' If you see not the bale-fires
ere daylight, you will come back with what speed you may; but if you do
see them, then--"

"Father, you have not lived long on the Highland line for nothing," quoth
Robin Lindsay.

"A very proper stratagem indeed," I said, "but now, gentlemen, there is
one little matter; how will Sir Hugh Kennedy take this device of ours? If
we try it and fail, without his privity, we had better never return, but
die under Paris wall. And, even if we hold the gate, and Paris town is
taken, faith I would rather affront the fire of John the Lorrainer than
the face of Sir Hugh."

No man spoke, there were not two minds on this matter, so, after some
chaffer of words, it was agreed to send Father Urquhart with Randal to
show the whole scheme to Sir Hugh, while the rest of us should await
their coming back with an answer. In no long time they were with us, the
father very red and shamefaced.

"He gave the good father the rough side of his tongue," quoth Randal,
"for speaking first to me, and not to him. Happily we were over cunning
to say aught of our gathering here. But when he had let his bile flow,
he swore, and said that he could spare a hundred dyvour loons of his
command, on the cast of the dice, and, now silence all! not a word or a
cry," here he held up his hand, "we are to take 'fortune of war'!"

Every man grinned gladly on his neighbour, in dead stillness.

"Now," said Randal, "slip out by threes and fours, quietly, and to
quarters; but you, Norman, wait with me."

CHAPTER XXII--HOW NORMAN LESLIE FARED IN PARIS TOWN

"Norman, my lad, all our fortunes are made," said Randal to me when we
were left alone. "There will be gilt spurs and gold for every one of us,
and the pick of the plunder."

"I like it not," I answered; whereon he caught me rudely by both
shoulders, looking close into my face, so that the fume of the wine he
had been drinking reached my nostrils.

"Is a Leslie turning recreant?" he asked in a low voice. "A pretty tale
to tell in the kingdom of Fife!"