without excitement.

"Don't strangle him, Francois; I may need him later. Let him be flogged
and locked in the oratory."

He turned away as one bored over a trifling matter. And as the lackeys
dragged me back to the door, I heard Mlle. de Montluc saying:

"Oh, M. de Latour, what have I done in destroying your knave of
diamonds! Ma foi, you had a quatorze!"

XIV

_In the oratory._

"Here, Pierre!" M. de Brie called to the head lackey, "here's a
candidate for a hiding. This is a cub of that fellow Mar's. He reckoned
wrong when he brought his insolence into this house. Lay on well, boys;
make him howl."

Brie would have liked well enough, I fancy, to come along and see the
fun, but he conceived that his duty lay in the salon. Pierre, the same
who had conducted me to Mlle. de Montluc, now led the way into a long
oak-panelled parlour. Opposite the entrance was a huge chimney carved
with the arms of Lorraine; at one end a door led into a little oratory
where tapers burned before the image of the Virgin; at the other, before
the two narrow windows, stood a long table with writing-materials.
Chests and cupboards nearly filled the walls. I took this to be a sort
of council-room of my Lord Mayenne.

Pierre sent one of his men for a cane and to the other suggested that he
should quench the Virgin's candles.

"For I don't see why this rascal should have the comfort of a light in
there," he said. "As for Madonna Mary, she will not mind; she has a
million others to see by."

I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow
at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered
myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously:

"Now howl your loudest, lad; and I'll not lay on too hard."

My clinched fist dropped to my side.

"You never did me any harm," he muttered. "Howl till they think you half
killed, and I'll manage."

I gaped at him, not knowing what to make of it. But this is the way of
the world; if there is much cruelty in it, there is much kindness, too.

"Here's the cane, nom d'un chien!" Pierre exclaimed boisterously. "Give
it here, Jean; there'll not be much of it left when I get through."

"You'll strip his coat off?" said the second lackey, from the oratory.

"My faith! no; I should kill him if I did, and the duke wants him,"
Pierre retorted. So without more ado the two men tied my wrists in front
of me, and Jean held me by the knot while Pierre