rshal in
this--this ball-room?"

But Rosny, whose business it was to know all things, had had dealings
with Jean-aux-Choux.

"It is the Fool of the Three Henries!" he whispered, "a wise man, they
say--bachelor of Geneva, a deacon at the trade of theology, and all
that!"

"I see nothing for it," D'Aubigne interrupted drily, "but that we should
agree to put all three Henries into motley, and set Jean-aux-Choux on
the throne!"

"Speak your mind plainly, Jean-aux-Choux," cried Turenne peremptorily;
"we are none of us of the Three Henries. And we will bear no fooling.
What is your message to us--Sir Fool with the Death's Head? Out with it,
and briefly."

Jean-aux-Choux waved his hand in the direction of the bridge of
Gargilesse.

"Yonder--yonder," he said, "is your answer coming to you!"

Beyond the crowded roofs of the old town, thatched and tiled, the white
track to Gargilesse and Croizant meandered amid the sparse and sunburnt
vegetation of autumn. Sparks of light, stars seen at noonday, began to
dance behind the little broomy knolls, where the pods were cracking open
merrily in the heat of the sun.

"They are spears," cried the well-advised veterans of the south, men of
the old Huguenot guard. "Who comes? None from that direction to do us
any good!"

Then Rosny, who, in moments of action, could make every one afraid of
him, with his fair skin and the false air of innocence on his face, in
which two blue eyes strange and stern were set, rode up to the King and,
bidding him leave ribbons and sashes to give his mind for a moment to
sword-points, he indicated, without an unnecessary word, the cavalcade
which approached from the south.

Henry of Navarre, who was never angered by a just rebuke, instantly left
the ladies with whom he had been jesting, and jumping on horseback, rode
right up to the top of a steep bank, which commanded the bridge by which
the horsemen must cross.

There he remained for a long while, none daring to speak further to him.
For again, in a moment, he had become the war-captain. Though not very
tall when on foot, the Bearnais sat his horse like a centaur, and it was
said of him, that the fiercer the fray, the closer Henry gripped his
knees, and the looser the rein with which he rode into the smother.

"Why," he cried, setting his gloved hands on either hip, "it is
Margot--my wife Margot, with another retinue of silks and furbelows!"

And the Bearnais laughed aloud.

"Check and check