aside a dozen yards, those two
would be after us like the wind."

"Do you mean," I cried, "that Bezers has drawn his men forward on
purpose?"

"Precisely;" was Louis's answer. "That is the fact. Nothing would
please him better than to take my honour first, and my life afterwards.
But, thank God, only the one is in his power."

And when I came to look at the horsemen, immediately before us, they
confirmed Louis's view. They were the best mounted of the party: all
men of light weight too. One or other of them was constantly looking
back. As night fell they closed in upon us with their usual care.
When Bure joined us there was a gleam of intelligence in his bold eyes,
a flash of conscious trickery. He knew that we had found him out, and
cared nothing for it.

And the others cared nothing. But the thought that if left to myself I
should have fallen into the Vidame's cunning trap filled me with new
hatred towards him; such hatred and such fear--for there was
humiliation mingled with them--as I had scarcely felt before. I
brooded over this, barely noticing what passed in our company for
hours--nay, not until the next day when, towards evening, the cry arose
round me that we were within sight of Cahors. Yes, there it lay below
us, in its shallow basin, surrounded by gentle hills. The domes of the
cathedral, the towers of the Vallandre Bridge, the bend of the Lot,
where its stream embraces the town--I knew them all. Our long journey
was over.

And I had but one idea. I had some time before communicated to
Croisette the desperate design I had formed--to fall upon Bezers and
kill him in the midst of his men in the last resort. Now the time had
come if the thing was ever to be done: if we had not left it too long
already. And I looked about me. There was some confusion and jostling
as we halted on the brow of the hill, while two men were despatched
ahead to announce the governor's arrival, and Bure, with half a dozen
spears, rode out as an advanced guard.

The road where we stood was narrow, a shallow cutting winding down the
declivity of the hills. The horses were tired, It was a bad time and
place for my design, and only the coming night was in my favour. But I
was desperate.

Yet before I moved or gave a signal which nothing could recall, I
scanned the landscape eagerly, scrutinizing in turn the small, rich
plain below us, warmed by the last rays of the sun, the bare hills here
glowing, there dark,