e ink scarcely dry,
and as a paper-weight the seal of the Holy Office ready to append to it,
coolly pocketed both seal and mandate.

It was a warrant to the familiars of the Holy Office in the city of
Perpignan to seize the body of one Claire Agnew, a known and warrantable
heretic, presently residing at the house of La Massane near Collioure,
and to bring her within the prisons of the aforesaid Inquisition in the
Street of the Money, in the city above mentioned, within ten days at
most from that date--upon peril of their several lives, and of the lives
of all that should defend, aid, assist, or shelter the said Claire
Agnew, heretic, daughter of Francois of that name, plotter, spy, and
Calvinist.

Followed the signs and signatures of the two inquisitors in charge--to
wit, Teruel and Tullio. The name of Mariana did not anywhere appear.

"Ten days," muttered Jean-aux-Choux, when he had read it over; "that
gives us time. And there"--he heaved the seal of the Holy Office into
the Tet--"they will have to get one made. That will be another length to
our tether!"

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE WAY OF THE SALT MARSHES

The shore road from Perpignan to Collioure is a pass, dark and perilous,
even on an August night. But Jean-aux-Choux trod it with the assured
foot of one to whom the night is as the day. He had, as the people of
Collioure asserted, been assuredly witch-born. Now to be "witch-born"
may induce spiritual penalties hereafter, but, from all purely earthly
points of view, it is a good thing. For then you have cat's eyes and can
walk through black night as though it were noonday. Concerning this,
however, Jean did not trouble himself. He considered himself well-born,
well-baptised, one of the elect, and, therefore, perfectly prepared--a
great thing when it is your lot to walk in the midst of many sudden
deaths--for whatever the future might bring. He was turning over in his
mind ways and means of getting Claire across the frontier--not very
greatly troubled, because, first of all, there was the ten days' grace,
and though the Inquisition would doubtless have watchers posted about
the house, he, Jean-aux-Choux, could easily outwit them.

So he traversed the desolate flats between Perpignan and Elne, across
which wild bulls were then permitted to range. Indeed, they came at
times right up to the verge of the vineyards, which cultivators were
just beginning to hedge from their ravages with the strange spike-leaved
pl