owards the Rue d'Arbre Sec and
the Louvre, for there in the vicinity of the Palace were the likeliest
coverts.

"Now Heaven send us Petrucci," said Gaspard. "Would that the Little Man
had been alive and with us! This would have been a ruse after his own
heart."

"I think the great Conde would have specially misliked yon monk," said
the Englishman.

"Patience, Gawain. One foe at a time. My heart tells me that you will
get your priest."

The streets, still dim in the dawn, were thickly carpeted with dead. The
mob kicked and befouled the bodies, and the bravos in sheer wantonness
spiked them with their swords. There were women there, and children,
lying twisted on the causeway. Once a fugitive darted out of an entry,
to be brought down by a butcher's axe.

"I have never seen worse in the Indies," and Champernoun shivered. "My
stomach turns. For heaven's sake let us ride down this rabble!"

"Patience," said Gaspard, his eyes hard as stones. "Cursed be he that
putteth his hand to the plough and then turns back."

They passed several small bodies of Catholic horse, which they greeted
with cheers. That was in the Rue des Poulies; and at the corner where it
abutted on the quay before the Hotel de Bourbon, a ferret-faced man ran
blindly into them. Gaspard caught him and drew him to his horse's side,
for he recognised the landlord of the tavern where he had supped.

"What news, friend?" he asked.

The man was in an anguish of terror, but he recognised his former guest.

"There is a band on the quay," he stammered. "They are mad and do not
know a Catholic when they see him. They would have killed me, had not
the good Father Antoine held them till I made off."

"Who leads them?" Gaspard asked, having a premonition.

"A tall man in crimson with a broken plume."

"How many?"

"Maybe a hundred, and at least half are men-at-arms."

Gaspard turned to Champernoun.

"We have found our quarry," he said.

Then he spoke to his following, and noted with comfort that it was now
some hundred strong, and numbered many swords. "There is a Huguenot band
before us," he cried. "They wear our crosses, and this honest fellow has
barely escaped from them. They are less than three score. On them, my
gallant lads, before they increase their strength, and mark specially
the long man in red, for he is the Devil. It may be Navarre is with
them."

The mob needed no second bidding. Their chance had come, and they swept
along with a hoa