I can
foretell fair weather in July. Louis hath both ears and hands at the
Court of Burgundy, and Charles's counsellors love the chink of French
gold as well as thou dost the clatter of a wine pot.--But fare thee
well, and keep appointment--I must await my early Scot a bow shot
without the gate of the den of the lazy swine yonder, else will he
think me about some excursion which bodes no good to the success of his
journey."

"Take a draught of comfort first," said the lanzknecht, tendering him a
flask--"but I forget, thou art beast enough to drink nothing but water,
like a vile vassal of Mahound and Termagund [the name of the god of the
Saracens in medieaval romances where he is linked with Mahound]."

"Thou art thyself a vassal of the wine measure and the flagon," said the
Bohemian. "I marvel not that thou art only trusted with the bloodthirsty
and violent part of executing what better heads have devised.--He must
drink no wine who would know the thoughts of others, or hide his own.
But why preach to thee, who hast a thirst as eternal as a sand bank in
Arabia?

"Fare thee well. Take my comrade Tuisco with thee--his appearance about
the monastery may breed suspicion."

The two worthies parted, after each had again pledged himself to keep
the rendezvous at the Cross of the Three Kings. Quentin Durward watched
until they were out of sight, and then descended from his place of
concealment, his heart throbbing at the narrow escape which he and his
fair charge had made--if, indeed, it could yet be achieved--from a
deep laid plan of villainy. Afraid, on his return to the monastery,
of stumbling upon Hayraddin, he made a long detour, at the expense of
traversing some very rough ground, and was thus enabled to return to his
asylum on a different point from that by which he left it.

On the route, he communed earnestly with himself concerning the safest
plan to be pursued. He had formed the resolution, when he first heard
Hayraddin avow his treachery, to put him to death so soon as the
conference broke up, and his companions were at a sufficient distance,
but when he heard the Bohemian express so much interest in saving his
own life, he felt it would be ungrateful to execute upon him, in its
rigour, the punishment his treachery had deserved. He therefore resolved
to spare his life, and even, if possible, still to use his services as
a guide, under such precautions as should ensure the security of
the precious charge, to th