hung the
accomplishment of their enterprise, and at the command of the Duke, he
took the instrument into his hand, and approached it over the cloth.
Again, however, he would have hesitated, and would have withdrawn; but
the astrologer seized his hand before he was aware, and, giving it a
sharp direction downwards, caused him to plunge the instrument into
the object beneath the cloth. La Mole shuddered as he felt it
penetrate into a soft substance, that, small as it was, gave him the
idea of a human body; and that shudder ran through his whole frame as
a presentiment of evil.

"It is done," said the astrologer. "Go! and let the work of fate be
accomplished."

The pale foreheads of both the young men, visible above their masks,
showed that they felt they had been led further in the work of
witchcraft than was their intention; but they did not expostulate. It
was the Duke who now first rallied, and throwing down a heavy purse of
coin on the table before the astrologer, he called to his companion to
follow him.

Scarcely had the young men left the apartment, when the pannel by
which Catherine of Medicis had disappeared, again opened, and she
entered the room. Her face was pale, cold, and calm as usual.

"You heard them, Ruggieri!" she said, with her customary bland smile.
"Alencon would be king, and that ambitious fool drives him to snatch
his brother's crown. The Queen-mother is to be arrested, and
imprisoned as a rebel to her usurping son. A notable scheme, forsooth!
Her courier to recall Henry of Anjou from Poland has been intercepted
also! But that mischance must be remedied immediately. Ay! and
avenged. Biragne shall have instant orders. With this proof in my
possession, the life of that La Mole is mine," continued she, tearing
in twain the white linen cloth, and displaying beneath it a small wax
figure, bearing the semblance of a king, with a crown upon its head,
in which the gold pin was still left sticking, by the manner in which
this operation was performed. "Little treasure of vengeance, thou art
mine! Ruggieri, man, that plot was acted to the life. Verily, verily,
you were right. Charles dies; and troubled and harassed will be the
_last hours of his reign_."

CHAPTER II.

"There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust;
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up."