WE must now return to the two worthy personages whom we left jogging on towards the Chateau of St. Loup, taking them up at the precise place where we set them down.

“Bon grÉ mal grÉ va le prÊtre au sÉnÉ,” grumbled the Norman. “Remember, Madame Louise, I take you with no good-will: you insist upon going; so now if you meet with any thing disagreeable, it is your own fault,—mark that, ma poule.”

“I’m no more afraid of the Devil than yourself,” answered Louise pertly; “and I suppose I shall meet with no one worse than he is.”

“You may,” replied the Norman; “but come on, it gets late, and we have no time to spare.”

The tone of Marteville was not very encouraging; but Louise was resolved not to lose sight of her husband, and being by nature as bold as a lion, she followed on without fear. True it is, that she did not know the whole history of the Sorcerer’s Grove, or perhaps she might have felt some of those imaginary terrors from which hardly a bosom in France was altogether free: although Louise, bred up by Madame de Beaumont, whose strong and masculine mind rejected most of the errors of that age, had perhaps less of the superstition of the day than any other person of her own class.

The first approach to the Sorcerer’s Grove was any thing but terrifying. The road, winding gently down the slope of the hill, entered the forest between some fine tall trees, which rising out of a tract of scanty underwood and open ground, with considerable spaces between each of the boughs, afforded plenty of room for the rich sun to pour his rays between, and to chequer the green shadows of the wood with intervals of golden light. Every here and there, also, the declining sunbeams caught upon the old knotted trunks, and on the angles of the broken ground on either side, enlivening the scene without taking from its repose; and at the bottom of the hill, seen through the arch of boughs which canopied the way, appeared a bright mass of sunshine, with a glimpse of the sky beyond, where a larger open space than ordinary gave free access to the day. From this spot, however, the road, entering the deeper part of the wood, took a direction towards the old ChÂteau of St. Loup; and here the trees, growing closer together, began to shut out the rays; gloom and darkness spread over the path, and the rocks rising up into high broken banks on each side, cut off even the scanty light which glided between the thick branches above. At the same time, the whole scenery assumed a wilder and more desolate character, and the windings of the road round the base of the hill prevented the eye from catching even a glimpse of the prospect beyond.

Here, strewed upon the path, lay great masses of green mouldy rock, fallen from the banks on each side, evincing plainly how seldom the foot of man traversed its solitude; there again a mundic stream, blood-red, flowed across and tinged all the earth around with its own unseemly hue; while long brambles and creeping shrubs, dropping with chill dew, grew at the base of the rocks on either side, and shooting out their thorny arms, caught the feet of the horses as they passed. The deep solitude, the profound silence, the shadow of the overhanging woods, and the sombre gloom of every object around, began to have their effect on the mind of Louise, and notwithstanding her native boldness of heart, she set herself to conjure up more than one unpleasing vision. Her fears, however, were more of the living than the dead; and having now, against her nature, kept silence a long while, out of respect to the angry humour of her dearly beloved husband, she ventured to assert that it looked quite a place for robbers, and added a hope that they should not meet any.

“Pardie! I hope we shall!” replied the Norman. “Those you call robbers are fort honnÊtes gens: they are merely gentlemen from the wars, as I am myself: soldiers at free quarters, who have ever had a right prescriptive to levy their pay with their own hand. I beg that you will speak respectfully of them.”

Louise looked at her husband with an inquiring glance, not very well knowing whether to take his speech seriously, or merely as a jest; but there was nothing mirthful in the countenance of Monsieur Marteville, who, out of humour with his fair lady for persisting to accompany him, was in no mood for jesting. At this moment a whistle was heard in the wood, so like the note of a bird, that Louise was deceived, and would have taken no farther notice of the sound, had not her companion applied his hand to his lips and imitated it exactly.

“What is that?” demanded Louise, upon whose mind a thousand undefined suspicions were crowding fast: “What noise is that in the wood?”

“It’s only a pivert,” replied the Norman with a grim smile, in the effort of which the scar upon his lip drew the corner of his mouth almost into his eye.

“A pivert!” replied Louise: “No, no, that is not the cry of a woodpecker—you are cheating me.”

“Well, you will see,” replied Marteville; “I’ll make him come out.” So saying, he repeated the same peculiar whistle, and then drawing in his rein, shook himself in the saddle, loosened his sword in the sheath, and laid his hand on one of his holsters, as a man who prepares for an encounter, of the event of which he is not quite certain whether it will be for peace or war.

His whistle was again returned, and a moment after the form of a man was seen protruding itself through the trees that crowned the high bank under which they stood. His rusty iron morion, his still rustier cuirass, his weather-beaten countenance and dingy apparel, formed altogether an appearance so similar to the trunks of the trees amongst which he stood, that he would have been scarcely distinguishable, had it not been for the effort to push his way through the lower branches, the rustling of which, and a few falling stones forced over the edge of the rock at his approach, drew the eye more particularly to the spot where he appeared. In his hand he carried a firelock, which, by a natural impulse, was pointed at the Norman the moment he perceived a doublet of blue velvet—as the fowling-piece of a sportsman is instinctively carried to his shoulder, on the rising of a partridge or a grouse. But Monsieur Marteville was prepared for all such circumstances; and drawing the pistol which hung at his saddle-bow, and which, if one might judge by length, would carry a mile at least, he pointed directly towards the rusty gentleman above described, crying out, “Eh bien, l’ami! Eh bien! Do you shoot your friends like woodcocks? or have you forgotten me?”

“Nom de Dieu!” cried the man above: “Je vous en demande mille pardons, et mille, Monsieur le Capitaine. I’ll come down to you directly. Christi! I had nearly given you a ball! But I’ll come down!”

While the robber was putting this promise in execution, Marteville whispered a few words of consolation to Louise, bidding her not be afraid, that they were fort honnÊtes gens, trÈs aimables to their friends, et cetera; but seeing that his words produced no effect, and that the unfortunate girl, beginning to comprehend the nature of his character, had burst into tears of bitter regret, he muttered a curse or two, not loud, but deep; and without any farther effort to allay her fears, sat whistling on his horse, till the robber, half sliding, half running, managed to descend from the eminence on which he had first appeared.

“Eh bien, Callot,” said Monsieur Marteville to his former companion, “how goes it with the troop?”

“But badly,” replied Callot: “What with one devilry or another, we have but half a dozen left.”

“And where is Pierrepont Le Blanc?” demanded the Norman: “Could not he keep you together?”

“Oh! we have sent him to the kingdom of moles,” answered the robber, twisting his face into a most horrible grin. “First he quarrelled with one, and then he quarrelled with another; and then, as he was captain, and had the purse, he bethought him of taking himself off with all the treasure. But we caught him on the road; and so, as I have said, we sent the buccaneer on an embassy to the kingdom of moles. After that, there were two of us shot near Epernay, by a party of the Guard; and then six more went to see what could be gathered upon the road to Perpignan, and one was taken and hanged at Troyes; so that there are but myself and five others of the old band left.”

“And quite enough too, if you had a bold leader,” replied the Norman. “But where do you roost, mes jolis oiseaux?”

“No, no; we do not perch now,” answered the robber; “we go to earth. Under the old castle here, are the most beautiful vaults in the world; and I defy Beelzebub himself to nose us, when we are hidden there.”

“But why not take to the chÂteau itself? Is it so far decayed?”

“Nay,” replied the other, “for that matter, it is as good a nest as any one would wish to house in: but it is not quite so forsaken as folks think. We did put up there at first; but one night, while all of our party were out but three—being myself and two others who stayed—we heard suddenly the sound of horses, and looking out, we saw by the twilight five stout cavaliers dismount in the court; and up they marched to the very room where we were sitting, so that we had scarce time to bundle up our things and to cover. And there they sat for four good hours; while we were shut up in the little watch-tower next to them, with no way to get out, and no powder but what was in our carbines, or mayhap we should have given them a dose or two of leaden pills, for at first we thought they were on the look-out for our band. But presently after, up came another, and then they all set to, to talk high treason. I could not well hear, for the door was so thick, and we dared not move; but I know they spoke of a treaty with Spain, and bringing in Spanish troops into France. Since then, we have kept to the vaults, for fear of being nosed.”

“Well, Louise,” whispered the Norman, turning to the soubrette, “you see I did not come here for no purpose. It is this treaty with Spain I want to find out; and if I do, our fortune is made for ever, and you will eat off gold, and drink out of gold, and be as happy as a princess!”

The prospects which her husband held out, and which might certainly be called golden, were not without their effect on Louise; but still his evident familiarity with the gentleman in the rusty steel coat did not at all suit her ideas of propriety, nor were the matters which they discussed in the least to her taste; but as remonstrance was in vain, and she began to perceive that the influence of her tears was not very great, she resigned herself to her fate in silence.

Several more questions and replies passed between the Norman and his ancient comrade, which, as they tend to throw no light upon this history, shall not find a place therein. At length Monsieur Callot, in as hospitable and courtly a strain as he could assume, requested the pleasure of Monsieur Marteville’s company to spend the evening in the vaults of the old chateau, if he had not grown too fine, by living among the great, to associate with his old friends. In return for this, the worthy Norman assured him, that he never was so happy as when he was in their society, accepted the invitation with pleasure, and begged to introduce his wife. Callot would fain have offered his salute to the lips of the fair lady, and had mounted on a huge stone beside her horse for that purpose; but Louise repulsed him with the dignity of a duchess, and Callot did not press the matter farther, merely giving a shrewd wink of the eye and screw of the under-jaw, as much as to say, “she’s nice, it seems,” and then led the way towards the present abode of Marteville’s old band.

The road which he took, wound through the very depth of the wood towards that side of the hill which, looking over the wide extent of forest-ground lying between the old castle and the high road to Troyes, seemed to offer nothing but dark inaccessible precipices, from the shallow stream that ran bubbling at its base to the walls of the ruin above. Crossing the rivulet, however, which did not rise higher than the horses’ knees, the robber led the way round a projecting mass of rock, that seemed to have been forcibly riven from the rest, and which, though it left space enough for the horses to turn, would have effectually concealed them from the sight of any one who might be in the wood.

The two sides of the hill next to the village of Mesnil, and the ridge of rising ground on which it was situated, sloped easily into the valleys around, and were covered with a rich and glowing vegetation; but on the northern as well as the western side, which the Norman and his companions now approached, the rock offered a very different character, and one, indeed, extremely rare in that part of the country.

Wherever the eye turned, nothing presented itself but flat surfaces of cold grey stone, with the deep markings of the rifts and hollows which separated them from each other. Occasionally, indeed, a patch of thin vegetable earth, accumulating on any point that offered the means of support, yielded a slight gleam of verdure, so poor in hue, and so limited in extent, that it seemed alone to rival the lichens and stains of the rocks around, and to serve but as a mockery of the naked crag that bore it. Here and there too, a black antique pine, fixing its sturdy roots in the bleakest pinnacles, would be seen to start boldly out, as if to brave the tempests, that, sweeping over the oaks in the forest below, spent their full fury on its more ambitious head. The principal objects, however, that attracted attention, were the multitude of deep fissures and hollows which presented themselves at every point, and the immense blocks of stone which, scattered about round the base of the rock, offered plentiful means of concealment to any one who might there seek to baffle a pursuer.

Turning, as we have said, round the base of one of these large masses, the robber uttered three loud whistles, to give notice that it was a friend approached; and immediately after, from a cavern, the mouth of which was concealed in one of the fissures above-mentioned, came forth two figures, whose wild apparel corresponded very well with that of their companion.

“Morbleu! Monsieur Marteville!” cried one of them, the moment he recognised the Norman, “est-ce vous? Soyez le bien venu! Come at a lucky moment for some of the best wine of Bonne! The Gros St. Nicholas—you remember our old companion—has just returned from the Chemin de Troyes, where he met two charitable monks, who, out of pure benevolence, bestowed upon him three paniers of good wine and twelve broad pieces; though they threatened to excommunicate him, and the two who were with him, for holding steel poniards to their throats while they did their alms. However, you are heartily welcome, and the more so if you are come to stay with us.”

“We will talk of that presently,” said the Norman. “But in the first place, good friends, tell me, can one get up to the castle above, which, Callot says, is habitable yet? for here is my wife, who is not much used to dwell in vaults, and may like a lodging above ground better.”

“Oh, certainly! Madame shall be accommodated,” said the last speaker, who seemed to be more civilized than good Monsieur Callot. “Our own dwelling is well enough; but if she so please, I will show you up the staircase which leads from the vaults to the court above. However, I hope she will stay to partake of our supper, which is now before the fire, as you shall see.”

“She shall come down again,” said the Norman, dismounting, and lifting Louise out of the saddle, “and will thank you for your good cheer, for we have ridden far.” So saying, he followed into the cave, which at first presented nothing but the natural ruggedness of the rock; but at that spot where the daylight began to lose its effect in the increasing darkness of the cavern, one might perceive, though with difficulty, that it assumed the form of a regular arch cased with masonry; and in a moment or two, as they proceeded groping their way after the robber, they were warned that there were steps: mounting these, and turning to the left, they discerned, at a little distance in advance, a bright red light streaming from behind a projecting angle, which itself remained in utter obscurity. The robber here went on first, and they heard him announce in a loud and jocular tone, “Le Sieur Marteville, et Madame sa femme!” with as much ceremony as if he had been heralding them into the presence of royalty.

“Bah! vous plaisantez!” cried a thick merry voice, seeming as if it issued from the midst of stewed prunes. But the Norman advancing, bore evidence of the truth of the other’s annunciation, and was instantly caught in the arms of the Gros St. Nicolas, as he was called; who merited, at least, the appellation of gros, though with the sanctity he appeared to have but little to do. He was fat, short, and protuberant, with a face as round as the full moon, and as rosy as a peony. In fact, he seemed much better fitted for a burgess or a priest, an innkeeper or an alderman, than for the thin and meagre trade of a cut-purse, which seldom leaves any thing but bones to be hanged at last. However, he bore him jollily; and, when the party entered, was, with morion and breast-plate thrown aside, engaged in basting a large quarter of venison, which smoked before a stupendous fire, whose blaze illuminated all the wide vault, which formed their salle À manger and kitchen both in one.

“Est-il possible?” cried the Gros St. Nicolas, embracing our Norman, whose companion he had been for many years both in honourable and dishonourable trades;—“Mon ami! Mon Capitaine! Mon Brave! Mon Prince! Enfin, Mon Normand!”

Quitting the ecstasies of the Gros St. Nicolas at meeting once more with his friend, and the formalities of his introduction to Louise, we shall only say that, according to the request of the Norman, one of the freebooters led the way up a circular staircase in the rock, which soon brought them into the open air, through a small arch entering upon the court of the old castle. Here Marteville, having marked all the peculiar turns which they had taken, with the accuracy which his former life had taught, bade good day to their guide, promising to rejoin the party below by the time the venison was roasted; and finding that more than an hour of daylight yet remained, he proceeded with Louise to explore the remains of the chÂteau.

The little attentions he had lately paid, had greatly conciliated his fair lady; and though still somewhat disposed to pout, she suffered him to explain his views with a tolerable degree of placability. “You must know, ma charmante Louise,” said he, “that there is a tremendous plot going on against the Government; and that Monsieur de Chavigni has intrusted me to discover it. You heard what Callot said, concerning a treaty with Spain. Now I have always understood, that when these secret treaties are formed, a copy is deposited in some uninhabited place for greater security. You see, I have traced Fontrailles to this castle, and it is evident that here he met the other conspirators: now where, then, can they have secreted the treaty but somewhere about here? So now, Louise, help me to find this paper, if it is to be found; and then we will soon quit these men, of whom you seem so much afraid, and go and live like princes on the fortune that Chavigni has promised.”

To this long speech of her husband, which he accompanied with sundry little caresses, Louise replied, in a tone still half sulky, that she was ready to seek the paper, but that she did not see how they could find it, with nothing to guide them in the search. But nevertheless, when they did seriously begin their perquisitions, she displayed all that sagacity in discovering a secret which women instinctively possess. Of course, the first place to which they particularly directed their inquiries was the chamber in which, according to the account of Callot, the meeting of the conspirators had been held.

Here they looked in every nook and corner, turned over every heap of rubbish, examined the chairs and the table of old PÈre Le Rouge, and having gone over every inch of the apartment, began anew and went over it all again. At length Louise, seemingly tired of her search in that chamber, left her husband to pursue it as he pleased, and sitting down in one of the settles, began to hum a Languedoc air, beating time with her fingers on the table.

“Pardie!” cried the Norman, after having hunted for some time in vain: “it is not here, that is certain!”

“Yes, it is!” said Louise, very quietly continuing to beat time on the table; “it is in this very room.”

“Nom de Dieu! where is it then?” cried Monsieur Marteville.

“It is here, in the inside of this hollow piece of wood,” answered Louise, tapping the table with her knuckles, which produced that sort of empty echoing sound that evinced it was not so solid as it appeared.

The Norman now approached, and soon convincing himself that Louise was right, he took her in his arms and gave her a kiss that made the ruin echo. The next thing was to get into the drawer, or whatsoever it was, that occupied the interior of the table; but this not proving very easy, the impatient Norman set it upright upon one end, and drawing his sword, soon contrived to cleave it through the middle; when, to the delight of the eyes that looked upon it, appeared a large cavity neatly wrought in the wood, containing a packet of vellum folded, and sealed at all corners in blue and yellow wax, with neat pieces of floss-silk to keep it all together. The Norman could have eaten it up; and Louise, with a degree of impatient curiosity peculiarly her own, was already fingering one of the seals, about to break it open, when Marteville stopped her with a tremendous oath. “What are you going to do?” cried he: “you know little what it is to pry into State secrets. If you had opened that seal, instead of having perhaps a reward of twenty thousand crowns, we should both have been sent to the Bastille for the rest of our lives.” Louise dropped the packet in dismay; and the Norman continued, “Did you never hear of the AbbÉ de Langy, who happening to be left by Monsieur de Richelieu in his private cabinet only for five minutes, with some State papers on the table, was sent to the Bastille for twelve years, merely for fear he had read them? No, no; this must go to Monsieur Chavigni without so much as cracking the wax.”

“Could not we just look in at the end?” demanded Louise, looking wistfully at the packet, which her husband had now picked up. But upon this he put a decided negative; and having now succeeded to his heart’s content, the burly Norman, in the exuberance of his joy, began singing and capering till the old pile both echoed and shook with his gigantic gambols. “Ma Louise,” cried he at length, “vous Êtes fatiguÉe. Je vais vous porter;” and catching her up in his arms, notwithstanding all remonstrance, he carried her like a feather into the court-yard, through the narrow arch, and threading all the intricacies of the vaults with the same sagacious facility with which a ferret glides through the windings of a warren, he bore her safely and in triumph into the salle À manger of the honourable fraternity below. This was not the mode of progression which Louise most admired, nor was she very much gratified at being exhibited to her husband’s old friends in so ungraceful an attitude; and the consequences, of course, were, that she would willingly have torn his eyes out had she dared.

However, Monsieur Callot, Le Gros St. Nicolas, and others, applied themselves successfully to soothe her ruffled spirits; and the venison being ready, and a long table laid, each person drew forth their knife, and soon committed infinite havoc on the plump haunch which was placed before them. The wine succeeded, and then that water of life which very often ends in death. All was hilarity and mirth, song, jest, and laughter. Gradually, one barrier after another fell, as cup succeeded cup. Each one told his own story, without regard to the rest; each one sang his own song; each one cracked his own joke. Louise had retired to a settle by the side of the fire, but still mingled in the conversation, when it could be called such; and Monsieur Callot, somewhat full of wine, and a good deal smitten with her charms, plied her with assiduities rather more perhaps than was necessary. In the mean time, the Gros St. Nicolas, running over with brandy and good spirits, kept jesting the Norman upon some passages of his former life, which might as well have been passed over and forgotten. “Madame!” cried he at length, turning round towards Louise, with an overflowing goblet in his hand, and his broad face full of glee, “I have the honour of drinking to your health, as the fifth spouse of our good friend Monsieur de Marteville; and let me assure you, that of the three that are living and the two that are dead, you are the most beautiful beyond compare!”

Up started Louise in an agony of indignation, and forth she poured upon the Gros St. Nicolas a torrent of vituperation for jesting upon such a subject. But on his part he only shrugged his shoulders, and declared that he did not jest at all. “Mon Dieu!” said he, “it is very unreasonable to suppose that Monsieur Marteville, who is as big as five men, should be contented with one wife. Besides, it is trÈs agrÉable to have a wife in every province; I always do so myself.”

The thunder of Louise’s ire, now increased in a seven-fold degree, was turned instantly upon her dearly-beloved husband. Her eyes flashed, and her cheek flamed, and approaching him, where he sat laughing at the whole business, she demanded that he should exculpate himself from this charge of pentigamy, with a tone and manner that made the Norman, who had drunk quite enough, laugh still more. With an unheard-of exertion of self-command, Louise kept her fingers from his face; but she burst forth into reproaches so bitter and stinging, that Marteville’s mirth was soon converted into rage, and he looked at her with a glance which would quickly have taught those who knew him well not to urge him farther. But Louise went on, and wound up by declaring, that she would live with him no longer—that she would quit him that very moment, and finding her way to Monsieur Chavigni, would tell him all—adding, that she would soon send the Guard to ferret out that nest of ruffians, and that she hoped to see him hanging at the head of them. With this expression of her intentions, Louise darted out of the vault; but the Norman, who, speechless with rage, had sat listening to her with his teeth clenched, and his nether lip quivering with suppressed passion, started suddenly up, cast the settle from him with such force that it was dashed to pieces against the wall, and strode after her with the awful cloud of determined wrath settled upon his brow.

The mirth of the robbers, who knew the ungovernable nature of their companion’s passions, was now over, and each looked in the face of the other with silent expectation. After a space, there was the murmur of angry voices heard for a moment at the farther end of the passage; then a loud piercing shriek rang through the vault; and then all was silence. A momentary sensation of horror ran through the bosoms of even the ferocious men whose habits rendered them familiar with almost every species of bloodshed. But this was new and strange amongst them, and they waited the return of the Norman with feelings near akin to awe.

At length, after some time, he came, with a firm step and unblenching brow, but with a haggard wildness in his eye which seemed to tell that remorse was busy with his heart. However, he sat him down without any allusion to the past, and draining off a cup of wine, strove laboriously after merriment. But it was in vain; the mirth of the whole party was evidently forced; and Marteville soon took up another strain, which accorded better with the feelings of the moment. He spoke to them of the dispersion of the band, which had taken place since he left them; announced his intention of joining them again; and drawing forth a purse containing about a thousand livres, he poured them forth upon the table, declaring them to be his first offering to the treasury.

This magnificent donation, which came in aid of their finances at a moment when such a recruit was very necessary, called forth loud shouts of applause from the freemen of the forest; and the Gros St. Nicolas starting up, addressed the company much to the following effect: “Messieurs—every one knows that I am St. Nicolas, and no one will deny that I am surrounded by a number of goodly clerks. But although in my saintly character I will give up my clerical superiority to nobody; yet it appears to me, that our society requires some lay commander; therefore I, your bishop, do propose to you to elect and choose the Sieur Marteville, here present, to be our king, and captain in the wars, in room of the Sieur Pierrepont Le Blanc, who, having abdicated without cause, was committed to the custody of the great receiver-general—the earth, by warrant of cold iron and pistol-balls. What say ye, Messieurs, shall he be elected?”

A shout of approbation was the reply; and Marteville, having been duly elected, took the oaths, and received the homage of his new subjects. He then entered into a variety of plans for increasing the band, concentrating its operations, and once more rendering it that formidable body, which it had been in former times. All this met with the highest approbation; but the Captain showing the most marked dislike to remaining in the forest which they at present tenanted, and producing a variety of reasons for moving their quarters to Languedoc, where the neighbourhood of the court and the army offered greater facilities both for recruiting their numbers and their purses, it was agreed that they should disperse the next morning, and re-assemble as soon as possible, at a certain spot well known to the whole party, about forty leagues distant from Lyons.

This was happily effected; and the Norman, on presenting himself at the rendezvous, had the pleasure of introducing to the band two new associates, whom he had found the means of converting on the road.

Although abandoning himself heart and soul to the pleasures of his resumed profession, our friend Marteville was not forgetful of the reward he expected from Chavigni; and as his official duties prevented his being himself the bearer of the paper he had obtained, he despatched it to Narbonne, where the Statesman now was, by his faithful subject Callot, with orders to demand ten thousand crowns of Monsieur de Chavigni, as a reward for having discovered it, adding also an elaborate epistle to the same effect.

The Norman never for a moment entertained a suspicion that the paper he sent was any thing but the identical treaty with Spain, which the conspirators had been heard to mention; and he doubted not that the Statesman would willingly pay such a sum for so precious a document. But the embassy of Monsieur Callot did not prove so fortunate as had been anticipated. Presenting himself to Chavigni, with as much importance of aspect as the ambassador from Siam, he tendered his credentials, and demanded the reward, at a moment when the Statesman was irritated by a thousand anxieties and dangers.

Making no ceremony with the fine blue and yellow wax, Chavigni, having read the Norman’s epistle, soon found his way into the inside of the other packet, and beheld in the midst of a thousand signs and figures, unintelligible to any but a professed astrologer, a prophetic scroll containing some doggrel verses, which may be thus rendered into English:—

Chavigni gazed at the paper in amazement, and then at the face of Monsieur Callot, who, totally unconscious of the contents, remained very nonchalantly expecting the reward. “Ten thousand crowns!” cried the Statesman, giving way to his passion. “Ho! without there! take this fellow out and flog him with your hunting whips out of Narbonne. Away with him, and curry him well!”

The grooms instantly seized upon poor Callot, and executed Chavigni’s commands with high glee. The robber, however, though somewhat surprised, bore his flagellation very patiently; for under the jerkin which he wore, still lay the rusty iron corslet we have before described, which saved him from appreciating the blows at their full value.

The matter, however, was yet to be remembered, as we shall see; for when Callot, on his return to the forest, informed his captain what sort of reward he had received for the packet, the Norman’s gigantic limbs seemed to swell to a still greater size with passion, and drawing his sword he put the blade to his lips, swearing, that before twelve months were over, it should drink Chavigni’s blood: and promises of such sort he usually kept most punctually.