ath, which crosses the
Rock of the Serpents."

"Patience, sir, one moment," I said. "Does that path run anywhere
through a plantation of box?"

"To be sure," he answered, without hesitation. "About half a mile on
this side of the rock it skirts Madame Catherine's maze."

Thereon I told the king without reserve all that had happened. He
listened with the air of apparent carelessness which he always assumed
when the many plots against his life were under discussion; but at the
end he embraced me again and again with tears in his eyes.

"France is beholden to you," he said. "I have never had, nor shall have,
such another servant as you, Rosny! The three ruffians at the inn,"
he continued, "are the tools, of course, and the hound has been in the
habit of accompanying them to the spot. Yesterday, I remember, I walked
by that place with the bridle on my arm."

"By a special providence, sire," I said, gravely.

"It is true," he answered, crossing himself, a thing I had never yet
known him to do in private. "But now, who is the craftsman who has
contrived this pretty plot? Tell me that, grand master."

On this point, however, though I had my suspicions, I begged leave to
be excused speaking until I had slept upon it. "Heaven forbid," I said,
"that I should expose any man to your Majesty's resentment without
cause. The wrath of kings is the forerunner of death."

"I have not heard," the king answered, drily, "that the Duke of Bouillon
has called in a leech yet."

Before retiring I learned that his Majesty had with him a score of light
horse, whom La Varenne had requisitioned from Melun, and that some of
these had each day awaited him at Malesherbes, and returned with him.
Further, that Henry had been in the habit of wearing, when riding back
in the evening, a purple cloak over his hunting-suit; a fact well known,
I felt sure, to the assassins, who, unseen and in perfect safety, could
fire at the exact moment when the cloak obscured the feather, and could
then make their escape, secured by the stout wall of box, from immediate
pursuit.

I was aroused in the morning by La Varenne coming to my bedside and
bidding me hasten to the king. I did so, and found his Majesty already
in his boots and walking on the terrace with Coquet, his master of the
household, Vitry, La Varenne, and a gentleman unknown to me. On seeing
me he dismissed them, and, while I was still a great way off, called
out, chiding me for my laziness; then