pty; the last had disappeared round the bend. I turned to find Gil
and half-a-dozen servants standing with pale faces at my back.
Croisette seized my hand with a sob. "Oh, my lord," cried Gil,
quaveringly. But I shook one off, I frowned at the other.

"Take up this carrion!" I said, touching it with my foot, "And hang it
from the justice-elm. And then close the gates! See to it, knaves,
and lose no time."

CHAPTER II.

THE VIDAME'S THREAT.

Croisette used to tell a story, of the facts of which I have no
remembrance, save as a bad dream. He would have it that I left my
pallet that night--I had one to myself in the summer, being the eldest,
while he and Marie slept on another in the same room--and came to him
and awoke him, sobbing and shaking and clutching him; and begging him
in a fit of terror not to let me go. And that so I slept in his arms
until morning. But as I have said, I do not remember anything of this,
only that I had an ugly dream that night, and that when I awoke I was
lying with him and Marie; so I cannot say whether it really happened.

At any rate, if I had any feeling of the kind it did not last long; on
the contrary--it would be idle to deny it--I was flattered by the
sudden respect, Gil and the servants showed me. What Catherine thought
of the matter I could not tell. She had her letter and apparently
found it satisfactory. At any rate we saw nothing of her. Madame
Claude was busy boiling simples, and tending the messenger's hurts.
And it seemed natural that I should take command.

There could be no doubt--at any rate we had none that the assault on
the courier had taken place at the Vidame's instance. The only wonder
was that he had not simply cut his throat and taken the letter. But
looking back now it seems to me that grown men mingled some
childishness with their cruelty in those days--days when the religious
wars had aroused our worst passions. It was not enough to kill an
enemy. It pleased people to make--I speak literally--a football of his
head, to throw his heart to the dogs. And no doubt it had fallen in
with the Vidame's grim humour that the bearer of Pavannes' first love
letter should enter his mistress's presence, bleeding and plaistered
with mud. And that the riff-raff about our own gates should have part
in the insult.

Bezers' wrath would be little abated by the issue of the affair, or the
justice I had done on one of his men. So we looked well to bolts, a