.

The shadow gave him commands. "When ten o'clock strikes, tap at this
window with your sword." He pointed as he spoke to the wall of the
castle, and in that wall Lagardere, peering through the obscurity, could
faintly discern a window about a man's height from the moat. The speaker
went on: "A woman will open. Whisper very low, 'I am here.'"

Involuntarily Lagardere echoed the last words, "I am here," and added,
"The motto of Nevers."

There was annoyance in the well-bred voice as it questioned, sharply:
"What do you know of Nevers?"

Peyrolles respectfully answered for the sham Saldagno: "Monseigneur, they
all know whom they are to meet. How they know I cannot tell, but they do
know. But they are to be trusted."

The shadow shrugged his shoulders and resumed his instructions: "The
woman will hand you a child, a baby a few months old. Take it at once to
the Inn." He paused for a moment and then said, slowly: "I trust you are
not tender-hearted."

Lagardere protested with voice and gesture. "You pain me," he declared.

Apparently satisfied, the shadow went on: "If the girl should die in your
arms, no one will blame you, and your fifty pistoles will be a hundred.
'Tis but a quick nip of finger and thumb on an infant's neck. Do you
understand?"

"What I do not understand," retorted Lagardere, "is why you do not do the
job yourself and save your money."

It was now Peyrolles's turn to be annoyed. "Rascal!" he exclaimed,
angrily. But the man he called monseigneur restrained him.

"Calm, Peyrolles, calm! For the very good reason, inquisitive gentleman,
that the lady in question would know my voice or the voice of my friend
here, and as I do not wish her to think that I have anything to do with
to-night's work--"

Lagardere interrupted, bluffly: "Say no more. I'm your man."

Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in the
distance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have been
told to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causeway
to the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest."

The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, the
fool amorist. Come."

Then the two shadows flitted away in the darkness as nebulously as they
had come, and the castle swallowed them up, and Lagardere was alone again
in the moat among the bundles of hay.

"May the devil fly away with you for a pair of knaves!" he said beneath
his breath, apostrophizing the