of some secret information, joined to audacious
courage and readiness of wit, save Galeotti from the most imminent
danger; and thus was Louis, the most sagacious, as well as the most
vindictive, amongst the monarchs of the period, cheated of his revenge
by the influence of superstition upon a selfish temper and a mind to
which, from the consciousness of many crimes, the fear of death was
peculiarly terrible.

He felt, however, considerable mortification at being obliged to
relinquish his purposed vengeance, and the disappointment seemed to
be shared by his satellites, to whom the execution was to have been
committed. Le Balafre alone, perfectly indifferent on the subject, so
soon as the countermanding signal was given, left the door at which he
had posted himself, and in a few minutes was fast asleep. The Provost
Marshal, as the group reclined themselves to repose in the hall after
the King retired to his bedchamber, continued to eye the goodly form of
the Astrologer with the look of a mastiff watching a joint of meat which
the cook had retrieved from his jaws, while his attendants communicated
to each other in brief sentences, their characteristic sentiments.

"The poor blinded necromancer," whispered Trois Eschelles, with an air
of spiritual unction and commiseration, to his comrade, Petit Andre,
"hath lost the fairest chance of expiating some of his vile sorceries,
by dying through means of the cord of the blessed Saint Francis, and I
had purpose, indeed, to leave the comfortable noose around his neck, to
scare the foul fiend from his unhappy carcass."

"And I," said Petit Andre, "have missed the rarest opportunity of
knowing how far a weight of seventeen stone will stretch a three plied
cord!--It would have been a glorious experiment in our line--and the
jolly old boy would have died so easily!"

While this whispered dialogue was going forward, Martius, who had taken
the opposite side of the huge stone fireplace, round which the
whole group was assembled, regarded them askance, and with a look of
suspicion. He first put his hand into his vest, and satisfied himself
that the handle of a very sharp double edged poniard, which he always
carried about him, was disposed conveniently for his grasp; for, as we
have already noticed, he was, though now somewhat unwieldy, a powerful,
athletic man, and prompt and active at the use of his weapon. Satisfied
that this trusty instrument was in readiness, he next took from his