cried out tumultuously, 'That is he!
That is the one!'

An elderly man in a quaint dress stepped forward, a paper in his hand,
and, backed as he was by half a dozen halberdiers, would in a moment
have laid hands on me if M. de Rambouillet had not intervened with a
negligent air of authority, which sat on him the more gracefully as he
held nothing but a riding-switch in his hands. 'Tut, tut! What is this?'
he said lightly. 'I am not wont to have my people interfered with, M.
Provost, without my leave. You know me, I suppose?'

'Perfectly, M. le Marquis,' the man answered with dogged respect; 'but
this is by the king's special command.'

'Very good,' my patron answered, quietly eyeing the faces behind the
Provost-Marshal, as if he were making a note of them; which caused some
of the gentlemen manifest uneasiness. 'That is soon seen, for we are
even now about to seek speech with his Majesty.'

'Not this gentleman,' the Provost-Marshal answered firmly, raising his
hand again. 'I cannot let him pass.'

'Yes, this gentleman too, by your leave,' the Marquis retorted, lightly
putting the hand aside with his cane.

'Sir,' said the other, retreating a step, and speaking with some heat,
'this is no jest with all respect. I hold the king's own order, and it
may not be resisted.'

The nobleman tapped his silver comfit-box and smiled. 'I shall be the
last to resist it--if you have it,' he said languidly.

'You may read it for yourself,' the Provost-Marshal answered, his
patience exhausted.

M. de Rambouillet took the parchment with the ends of his fingers,
glanced at it, and gave it back. 'As I thought,' he said, 'a manifest
forgery.'

'A forgery!' cried the other, crimson with indignation. 'And I had
it from the hands of the king's own secretary!' At this those behind
murmured, some 'shame,' and some one thing and some another--all with
an air so threatening that the Marquis's gentlemen closed up behind him,
and M. d'Agen laughed rudely.

But M. de Rambouillet remained unmoved. 'You may have had it from whom
you please, sir,' he said. 'It is a forgery, and I shall resist its
execution. If you choose to await me here, I will give you my word to
render this gentleman to you within an hour, should the order hold good.
If you will not wait, I shall command my servants to clear the way, and
if ill happen, then the responsibility will lie with you.'

He spoke in so resolute a manner it was not difficult to see that
somethi