Of How St. Auban Came to Blois

Of a certainty I should have acted thus, but that at the very moment upon which I formed the resolution Abdon drew my attention to a dark shadow by the roadside not twenty paces in front of us. This proved to be the motionless figure of a horseman.

As soon as I was assured of it, I reined in my horse, and taking a pistol from the holster, I levelled it at the shadow, accompanying the act by a sonorous-"Who goes there?"

The shadow stirred, and Michelot's voice answered me: "'T is I, Monsieur. They have arrived. I came to warn you."

"Who has arrived?" I shouted.

"The soldiers. They are lodged at the Lys de France."

An oath was the only comment I made as I turned the news over in my mind. I must return to Canaples.

Then another thought occurred to me. The Chevalier was capable of going to extremes to keep me from entering his house; he might for instance greet me with a blunderbuss. It was not the fear of that that deterred me, but the fear that did a charge of lead get mixed with my poor brains before I had said what I went to say, matters would be no better, and there would be one poor knave the less to adorn the world.

"What shall we do, Michelot?" I groaned, appealing in my despair to my henchman.

"Might it not be well to seek speech with M. de Montrésor?" quoth he.