ut I am in for it. You want me to go with you a
little after two, do you? and the others to be in the saddle at three?
Is that it?'

I assented, pleased to find him so far acquiescent; and in this
way, talking the details over more than once, we settled our course,
arranging to fly by way of Poitiers and Tours. Of course I did not tell
him why I selected Blois as our refuge, nor what was my purpose there;
though he pressed me more than once on the point, and grew thoughtful
and somewhat gloomy when I continually evaded it. A little after eight
we retired to the loft to sleep; our men remaining below round the fire
and snoring so merrily as almost to shake the crazy old building. The
host was charged to sit up and call us as soon as the moon rose, but,
as it turned out, I might as well have taken this office on myself, for
between excitement and distrust I slept little, and was wide awake when
I heard his step on the ladder and knew it was time to rise.

I was up in a moment, and Fresnoy was little behind me; so that, losing
no time in talk, we were mounted and on the road, each with a spare
horse at his knee, before the moon was well above the trees. Once in the
Chase we found it necessary to proceed on foot, but, the distance being
short, we presently emerged without misadventure and stood opposite to
the chateau, the upper part of which shone cold and white in the moon's
rays.

There was something so solemn in the aspect of the place, the night
being fine and the sky without a cloud, that I stood for a minute awed
and impressed, the sense of the responsibility I was here to accept
strong upon me. In that short space of time all the dangers before me,
as well the common risks of the road as the vengeance of Turenne and the
turbulence of my own men, presented themselves to my mind, and made
a last appeal to me to turn back from an enterprise so foolhardy. The
blood in a man's veins runs low and slow at that hour, and mine was
chilled by lack of sleep and the wintry air. It needed the remembrance
of my solitary condition, of my past spent in straits and failure, of
the grey hairs which swept my cheek, of the sword which I had long used
honourably, if with little profit to myself; it needed the thought of
all these things to restore me to courage and myself.

I judged at a later period that my companion was affected in somewhat
the same way; for, as I stooped to press home the pegs which I had
brought to tether the ho