If I cannot save her, I can at least
punish the villains who have wronged her.'

'But the man's wife is with them,' he said in some wonder.

'That goes for nothing,' I answered.

He saw the strong emotion under which I laboured, and which scarcely
suffered me to answer him with patience; and he looked at me curiously,
but not unkindly. 'The sooner you are off, the better then,' he said,
nodding. 'I gathered as much. The man Maignan will have his fellows
at the south gate an hour before noon, I understand. Francois has two
lackeys, and he is wild to go. With yourself and the lad there you will
muster nine swords. I will lend you two. I can spare no more, for we may
have an EMEUTE at any moment. You will take the road, therefore, eleven
in all, and should overtake them some time to-night if your horses are
in condition.'

I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly statement that my
conduct on the previous day had laid him under lasting obligations to
me. We went down together, and he transferred two of his fellows to me
there and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones and
meet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my stable--Simon Fleix
having disappeared in the confusion--for the Cid, and was in the act of
inquiring whether I needed anything else, when a woman slipped through
the knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the doorway of
the house, and, throwing herself upon me, grasped me by the arm. It was
Fanchette. Her harsh features were distorted with grief, her cheeks
were mottled with the violent weeping in which such persons vent their
sorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her dress was torn and
draggled, and there was a great bruise over her eye. She had the air of
one frantic with despair and misery.

She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I staggered. 'I have
found you at last!' she cried joyfully. 'You will take me with you! You
will take me to her!'

Though her words tried my composure, and my heart went out to her,
I strove to answer her according to the sense of the matter. 'It is
impossible, I said sternly. 'This is a man's errand. We shall have to
ride day and night, my good woman.'

'But I will ride day and night too!' she replied passionately, flinging
the hair from her eyes, and looking wildly from me to M. Rambouillet.
'What would I not do for her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger.
Take me, take me, I say, and when I meet that vil