erk of his head, and was gone.

"You called me, Sire?"

"Pen--ink--paper. There, on the table. Quicker, dolt, quicker!"

But with the quill between his fingers and the paper flattened on a pad
against his knee, Louis was in no haste to write. Gnawing with
unconscious savagery at his under-lip he stared into vacancy,
searching, searching, searching for the precise words to express his
thought. But they eluded him. It was not so simple to be precise, so
clear that even a fool like Beaufoy could not make a mistake, and yet
be so cautious that the true purpose, the inner meaning of the order,
would not betray him. Commines' voice was clanging in his ears like
the clapper of a bell, and would not let him think coherently. Twelve
hours! Twelve hours! Even now--no, not yet, but soon, very soon, it
might be too late. "Perdition!" he cried, striking his hand upon the
woollen coverlid--he was chilly even in May--"will they never come?"

And at last they came, not what satisfied him, but what perforce must
suffice, and with a hand marvellously steady under the compulsion of
the iron will he dashed off two or three sentences at white heat, added
his signature in the bold, angular characters which had so often
vouched a lie as the truth, and flung the paper across to Beaufoy.

"There! obey that, neither more nor less. Your horse is waiting you in
the courtyard. Read your orders as you go, but let no man see them,
not even Argenton. The moment they are executed return to Valmy."

"Go where, Sire?"

"To Amboise--Amboise, and ride as if all hell clattered at your back.
Go, man! Go, go!"

Until Beaufoy had dropped the curtain behind him Louis sat rigidly
upright; then, as if the very springs of life were sapped to their
utmost limit, he sank back in collapse upon the pillows. From the
half-opened shutter a shaft of light, falling athwart the table,
flashed a spark from the rounded smooth of a silver Christ upon the
cross, propped amongst the litter, and drew his eyes.

"Twelve hours," he whispered, staring at it, fascinated. "Thy power,
Thy power and infinite love, O Lord! God have mercy upon us! God have
mercy upon me! My son! My son!"

And riding down the slope to the river Beaufoy read:

"Go to Amboise. Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring him to
Valmy without delay. Tell him his orders are cancelled, and on your
life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.--LOUIS."

CHAPTER XXI