s go."

So they left the fellow gagged and bound, and rode on once more upon
their road, passing swiftly through Aignay-le-Duc without stopping.

"For," said St. Georges, "badly as we want rest, we must not halt
here. To-morrow those dead men will be found, with, perhaps, another
added to their number if the frost is great to-night, as it seems like
to be. We must push on for Chatillon now, even though we ride all
night. Pray Heaven our horses do not drop on the road!"

So through Aignay-le-Duc they went, clattering up the one wretched
street, their animals' hoofs waking peasants from their early
slumbers, and the jangling of their scabbards and steel trappings
arousing the whole village. Even the _guet de nuit_--who because it
was his duty to be awake was always asleep--was roused by the sound of
the oncoming hoofs, and, rushing to his cabin door, cried out, "Who
goes there?"

"_Chevau-leger en service du roi_," cried St. Georges; and
"_Mousquetaire de la maison du roi_," answered Boussac; and so, five
minutes later, they had passed the hamlet and were once more on their
road north.

"Yet," said St. Georges as, stopping to breathe their horses, he
opened the cloak and gazed on his sleeping child, "I would give much
to know who our enemy is--who the cruel wretch who aimed at your
innocent little life. 'A young man with a fair beard and gray eyes!'
the ruffian said. Who, who is he?"

And, bending over, he brushed her lips with his great mustache.

"My darling," he whispered, "I pray God that all attacks on you may be
thwarted as was this one to-night; that he may raise up for you always
so stout and true a protector as he who rides by my side."

"Amen!" muttered Boussac, who among his good qualities did not find
himself overwhelmed with modesty. "Amen! Though," he exclaimed a
second after, "he who would not fight for such an innocent as that
deserves never to have one of his own."

CHAPTER VII.

A REASON.

Midnight was sounding from the steeples of Chatillon as the soldiers
rode their tired beasts across the bridge over the Seine and through
the deserted street that led up to the small guard-house, where,
Boussac said, would be found the Governor of the Bailliage with some
soldiers of the Montagne Regiment.

As they had come along they had naturally talked much on the attack
that had been made upon them outside Aignay-le-Duc, and St. Georges
had decided that, as Chatillon was the most important to