"Well," said La Mole, "let each act on his own conviction; you leave and I will remain."

Coconnas shrugged his shoulders and lay down again.

At that moment in the opposite direction from that in which the queen was going, but in the same alley, there pa.s.sed at full speed a troop of hors.e.m.e.n whom the two friends recognized as ardent, almost rabid Protestants. Their steeds bounded like the locusts of which Job said, 'They came and went.'"

"The deuce! the affair is growing serious," said Coconnas, rising. "Let us go to the pavilion of Francois I."

"No," said La Mole; "if we are discovered it will be towards the pavilion that the attention of the King will be at first directed, since that is the general meeting-place."

"You may be right, this time," grumbled Coconnas.

Scarcely had Coconnas uttered these words before a horseman pa.s.sed among the trees like a flash of lightning, and leaping ditches, bushes, and all barriers reached the two gentlemen.

He held a pistol in each hand and with his knees alone guided his horse in its furious chase.

"Monsieur de Mouy!" exclaimed Coconnas, uneasy and now more on the alert than La Mole; "Monsieur de Mouy running away! Every one for himself, then!"

"Quick! quick!" cried the Huguenot; "away! all is lost! I have come around to tell you so. Away!"

As if he had not stopped to utter these words, he was gone almost before they were spoken, and before La Mole and Coconnas realized their meaning.

"And the queen?" cried La Mole.

But the young man's voice was lost in the distance; De Mouy was too far away either to hear or to answer him.

Coconnas had speedily made up his mind. While La Mole stood motionless, gazing after De Mouy, who had disappeared among the trees, he ran to the horses, led them out, sprang on his own, and, throwing the bridle of the other to La Mole, prepared to gallop off.

"Come! come!" cried he; "I repeat what De Mouy said: Let us be off! De Mouy knows what he is doing. Come, La Mole, quick!"

"One moment," said La Mole; "we came here for something."

"Unless it is to be hanged," replied Coconnas, "I advise you to lose no more time. I know you are going to pa.r.s.e some rhetoric, paraphrase the word 'flee,' speak of Horace, who hurled his buckler, and Epaminondas, who was brought back on his. But I tell you one thing, when Monsieur de Mouy de Saint Phale flees all the world may run too."

"Monsieur de Mouy de Saint Phale," said La Mole, "was not charged to carry off Queen Marguerite! Nor does Monsieur de Mouy de Saint Phale love Queen Marguerite!"

"By Heaven! he is right if this love would make him do such foolish things as you plan doing. May five hundred thousand devils from h.e.l.l take away the love which may cost two brave gentlemen their heads! By Heaven! as King Charles says, we are conspiring, my dear fellow; and when plans fail one must run. Mount! mount, La Mole!"

"Mount yourself, my dear fellow, I will not prevent you. I even urge you to do so. Your life is more precious than mine. Defend it, therefore."

"You must say to me: 'Coconnas, let us be hanged together,' and not 'Coconnas, save yourself.'"

"Bah! my friend," replied La Mole, "the rope is made for clowns, not for gentlemen like ourselves."

"I am beginning to think," said Coconnas, "that the precaution I took is not bad."

"What precaution?"

"To have made friends with the hangman."

"You are sinister, my dear Coconnas."

"Well, what are we going to do?" cried the latter, impatiently.

"Set out and find the queen."

"Where?"

"I do not know--seek the king."

"Where?"

"I have not the least idea; but we must find him, and we two by ourselves can do what fifty others neither could nor would dare to do."

"You appeal to my pride, Hyacinthe; that is a bad sign."

"Well! come; to horse and away!"

"A good suggestion!"

La Mole turned to seize the pommel of his saddle, but just as he put his foot in the stirrup an imperious voice was heard:

"Halt there! surrender!"

At the same moment the figure of a man appeared behind an oak, then another, then thirty. They were the light-horse, who, dismounted, had glided on all fours in and out among the bushes, searching the forest.

"What did I tell you?" murmured Coconnas, in a low tone.

A dull groan was La Mole's only answer.

The light-horse were still thirty paces away from the two friends.

"Well!" continued the Piedmontese, in a loud tone, to the lieutenant of the dragoons. "What is it, gentlemen?"

The lieutenant ordered his men to aim.

Coconnas continued under breath:

"Mount, La Mole, there is still time. Spring into your saddle as I have seen you do hundreds of times, and let us be off."

Then turning to the light-horse:

"The devil, gentlemen, do not fire; you would kill friends."

Then to La Mole:

"Between the trees they cannot aim well; they will fire and miss us."

"Impossible," said La Mole, "we cannot take Marguerite's horse with us or the two mules. They would compromise us, whereas by my replies I can avert all suspicion. Go, my friend, go!"