showing that he wished him to be regarded as a particular
friend of his; and Hector, having gained much in self possession since
he had last appeared there, was able to make himself more agreeable to
them than before, to bandy compliments, and adapt himself to the general
atmosphere of the court. The cardinal sent for him again the next
morning.

"The news is bad from Poitou, Colonel Campbell, and I think that it
would be well that you should proceed there at once. So we will release
you from further attendance, and you can make up for it by giving us a
longer time on your return."

Hector, however, tarried two days longer in Paris, by which time he had
received all the clothes that he had ordered. Early on the morning
of the third day he mounted and rode away with Paolo and three of his
troopers. Hunter had been left behind at Philippsburg for the cure of a
wound that he had received at Nordlingen. Hector was mounted on one of
the horses that Enghien had given him; the other was in the hands of the
Imperialists. They traveled fast, and met with no adventure until they
arrived at Poitou, where Hector learned that in the western part of
the province the peasants had almost everywhere risen, had defeated the
royal troops who had marched against them from La Rochelle and Nantes,
and had captured and burnt any chateaux, slaying all persons of the
better class who fell into their hands.

As he neared his own estate, learning that the tenants there had so far
not joined the rising, but that several bodies of insurgents were in the
neighbourhood, he rode still more rapidly forward. Signs of the trouble
were everywhere apparent. In the villages only women were to be seen;
there was no sign of life or movement in the fields; and he passed two
chateaux which were now but empty shells. As soon as he had crossed into
his own estates he found the houses entirely deserted; no man, woman,
nor child was to be seen; no animals grazed in the fields, and the
little stacks of hay and straw had been carried away.

"It is evident," he said to Paolo, "that MacIntosh has called all the
tenantry into the chateau; had they joined the insurgents the women and
children would still be here."

As they ascended the steep hill on whose brow the chateau stood, he
could make out that there were a number of men posted upon the walls.

"He is evidently determined that he will not be caught napping, Paolo,
and all the peasants of Poitou could not ta