and serpents and all manner of unclean
beasts! I would rather trust the Bearnais than any of them!"

There was some dismay at this. It stood out on the faces of the leaders
at the council board. If His Majesty went to the King of Navarre, they
knew well that their day would be over. However, they swore to do
everything that the King required, but of them all, only Lognac meant to
keep his word. He was a stout fighter. The killing of Guise was all in
the way of business; and if the worst came to the worst, the Bearnais
would not refuse a company to one who, in his time, had been Captain of
the Forty-Five.

Henry of Valois had been up early that morning, called from his slumbers
to bait the trap with his most secret cunning. He did not mean to take
any part in the deed himself. For the soldier who had fought so well
against Coligny now dodged out and in, like a rat behind the arras.

The Scots Guards were posted in the courtyard of the Chateau, to shut
the entrances as soon as the Duke of Guise should have passed within. In
the great hall were the Lords of the Council--the Cardinal of Guise,
the Archbishop of Lyons, that clarion of the League, the Cardinal
Vendome, the Marshal d'Aumont, D'O, the Royal favourite, together with
the usual clerks and secretaries.

But within, in the ancient chamber of audience, next to the cabinet of
the King himself, stood in waiting certain Gascons, ready with their
daggers only half-dissembled under their cloaks. They were men of no
determined courage, and the King well knew that they might fail him at
the last moment. So, by the advice of Hamilton and Larchant of the Scots
Guard, he had placed nearest to the door one who would make no
mistake--him whom the Man in the Black Cloak had sent, even
Jean-aux-Choux, the Fool of the Three Henries.

But on that mask of a face there was now no sign of folly. Stern, grey,
immovable was now the countenance of him who, by his mirth, had set many
courts in a roar. He could hear, as he had heard it on the night of the
Bartholomew, the voice of the Duke of Guise crying, "Haste ye--is the
work not done yet?"

And now another "work" was to be done. The feet that had spurned Coligny
were even now upon the stairs. He thanked God. Now he would perform his
vow upon the man who had made him go through life hideous and a
laughing-stock.

For in those days the New Law concerning the forgiveness of enemies was
a dead letter. If you wished to live, you had