was pacing up and down, his fingers busily and unconsciously arranging
his beard.

"I have not enough men to take him prisoner," he said; "this ex-mignon
D'Epernon is a slippery fish. He will deal with me, and with another.
But if he could sell my head to my Lord of Guise and these furious
wool-staplers of Paris, he would think it better worth his while than
the off-chance of the Bearnais coming out on top!"

He pondered a while, with the deep niche of thought running downward
from mid-brow to the bridge of his nose, which they called "the King's
council of war."

"The girl is to be left in Blois," he muttered, as if to sum up the
situation, "with this Professor of the Sorbonne--an old man, I suppose,
and a priest. Very proper, very proper! My cousin, John Jackanapes,
the young ex-Leaguer, goes to Court. They will make a Politique
of him, a Valois-divine-right man--good again, for after this
Valois-by-right-divine (save the mark!) comes not Master John d'Albret,
but--the Bearnais! Yet--I do not know--perhaps, after all, he had better
come with me. Then I shall hold one hostage the more! Let me see--let me
see!"

Here Jean-aux-Choux, who had at that time no great love for the Abbe
John, but was an honest man, protested.

"The time for crowning and seeking crowns is not yet," he said; "but the
lad they call the Abbe John, though he fought a little on the
Barricades, as young dogs do in a fray general, means no harm to Your
Majesty, and will fight for you better than many who protest more!"

"I believe you--I believe you!" said Henry. "If there is aught but
eyes-making and laying-on of blows in him, I shall soon find it out, and
he shall not trail a pike for long. He shall have his company, and that
of the choicest of my army."

Suddenly the pastor sprang up. He had a message to deliver, and being of
the prevailing school of the mystics, he put it in the shape of a
vision, as, indeed, it had appeared to him.

"I see the earth dissolved," he cried, "the elements going up in a
flaming fire, the inhabitants tormented and destroyed----"

"Thank God! Thank God!" responded the deep, dominating voice of
Jean-aux-Choux.

The King requested to know the meaning of this unexpected thankfulness
for universal destruction.

"Anything to settle the League!" said Jean-aux-Choux.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WAKING OF THE BEARNAIS

Jean-aux-Choux's deflection from his course created little remark and no
sensation in the b