ed by
the moonlight.

Lagardere turned to his friends. "She is in Gonzague's palace. We must
rescue her at once."

Passepoil appealed to him, pathetically: "Can you ever forgive us?"

"Yes," Lagardere answered--"yes, on one condition. There is a snake in
this garden. Kill him for me."

Cocardasse gave a grin of appreciation. "Peyrolles it is."

Even as he spoke there was a tramp of feet and a flare of light in a side
alley, and Peyrolles came towards them followed by half a dozen men, each
of whom carried a torch in his left hand and a naked sword in his right.
Peyrolles came towards the hunchback.

"Well, AEsop, we cannot find him anywhere."

"That," the hunchback answered, coldly, "is because you don't know where
to look."

Peyrolles turned to his followers. "Seek in all directions," he said, and
the men with the swords and torches dispersed in twos down the adjacent
alleys.

The hunchback laid his hand on Peyrolles's shoulder. "I know where to
find him."

Peyrolles turned in astonishment. "You do?"

"I am here!" the hunchback said, sternly. He drew himself up erect and
menacing, and flung back the long hair from his face. Peyrolles gave a
gasp of horror as he recognized the man whom he had seen such a short
while before in the presence of the king.

"Lagardere!" he cried, and was about to scream for help when Cocardasse
grasped him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and then
Cocardasse flung the dead body of Peyrolles at the feet of Lagardere.

Lagardere bent over him and spoke his epitaph: "The last of the lackeys.
Now for the master."

XXVI

THE REWARD OF AESOP

Paris lay quiet enough between the midnight and the dawn. All the noise
and brilliance and turbulence, all the gayety and folly and fancy of the
royal ball had died away and left the Palais Royal and the capital to
peace. Little waves of frivolity had drifted this way and that from the
ebbing sea to the haven of this great house and that great house, where
certain of those that had made merry in the king's gardens now made
merrier still at a supper as of the gods. The Palace of Gonzague was one
of those great houses. The hall where the Three Louis gazed at one
another--one so brave, one so comely, one so royal--was indeed a
brilliant solitude where the lights of many candles illuminated only the
painted canvases throned over emptiness. But from behind the great gilded
doors came the sound of many voices, men's voices an