n the manner in which I have but now told you yours," answered
Hayraddin, "but it requires little knowledge of Louis of Valois, to
presage that he will hang your guide, because your pleasure was to
deviate from the road which he recommended."

"The attaining with safety the purpose of the journey, and ensuring its
happy termination," said Quentin, "must atone for a deviation from the
exact line of the prescribed route."

"Ay," replied the Bohemian, "if you are sure that the King had in his
own eye the same termination of the pilgrimage which he insinuated to
you."

"And of what other termination is it possible that he could have been
meditating? or why should you suppose he had any purpose in his thought,
other than was avowed in his direction?" inquired Quentin.

"Simply," replied the Zingaro, "that those who know aught of the Most
Christian King, are aware that the purpose about which he is most
anxious, is always that which he is least willing to declare. Let our
gracious Louis send twelve embassies, and I will forfeit my neck to
the gallows a year before it is due, if in eleven of them there is not
something at the bottom of the ink horn more than the pen has written in
the letters of credence."

"I regard not your foul suspicions," answered Quentin, "my duty is plain
and peremptory--to convey these ladies in safety to Liege, and I take
it on me to think that I best discharge that duty in changing our
prescribed route, and keeping the left side of the river Maes. It is
likewise the direct road to Liege. By crossing the river, we should lose
time and incur fatigue to no purpose--wherefore should we do so?"

"Only because pilgrims, as they call themselves, destined for Cologne,"
said Hayraddin, "do not usually descend the Maes so low as Liege, and
that the route of the ladies will be accounted contradictory of their
professed destination."

"If we are challenged on that account," said Quentin, "we will say that
alarms of the wicked Duke of Gueldres, or of William de la Marck, or of
the Ecorcheurs [flayers; a name given to bands of wandering troops on
account of their cruelty] and lanzknechts, on the right side of the
river, justify our holding by the left, instead of our intended route."

"As you will, my good seignior," replied the Bohemian. "I am, for my
part, equally ready to guide you down the left as down the right side of
the Maes. Your excuse to your master you must make out for yourself."

Quentin, a