o read it
yourself, for you will have to wet the finger in turning over each leaf,
which takes up so much time."

"Oh," said D'Alencon, "Henry is with the court! Give me the book, and
while he is away I will put it in his room."

D'Alencon's hand was trembling as he took the book from the
queen-mother, and with some hesitation and fear he entered Henry's
apartment and placed the volume, open at the title-page.

But it was not Henry, but Charles, seeking his brother-in-law, who found
the book and carried it off to his own room. D'Alencon found the king
reading.

"By heavens, this is an admirable book!" cried Charles. "Only it seems
as if they had stuck the leaves together on purpose to conceal the
wonders it contains."

D'Alencon's first thought was to snatch the book from his brother, but
he hesitated.

The king again moistened his finger and turned over a page. "Let me
finish this chapter," he said, "and then tell me what you please. I have
already read fifty pages."

"He must have tasted the poison five-and-twenty times," thought
D'Alencon. "He is a dead man!"

The poison did its deadly work. Charles was taken ill while out hunting,
and returned to find his dog dead, and in its mouth pieces of paper from
the precious book on falconry. The king turned pale. The book was
poisoned! Many things flashed across his memory, and he knew his life
was doomed.

Charles summoned Rene, a Florentine, the court perfumer to Catherine de
Medici, to his presence, and bade him examine the dog.

"Sire," said Rene, after a close investigation, "the dog has been
poisoned by arsenic."

"He has eaten a leaf of this book," said Charles; "and if you do not
tell me whose book it is I will have your flesh torn from your bones by
red-hot pincers."

"Sire," stammered the Florentine, "this book belongs to me!"

"And how did it leave your hands?"

"Her majesty the queen-mother took it from my house."

"Why did she do that?"

"I believe she intended sending it to the King of Navarre, who had asked
for a book on hawking."

"Ah," said Charles, "I understand it all! The book was in Harry's room.
It is destiny; I must yield to it. Tell me," he went on, turning to
Rene, "this poison does not always kill at once?"

"No, sire; but it kills surely. It is a matter of time."

"Is there no remedy?"

"None, sire, unless it be instantly administered."

Charles compelled the wretched man to write in the fatal volume, "This
book was gi