Although I was looking at my horse’s ears, I could see the light of her eyes as she watched me inquiringly.  After a long pause she stroked her horse’s mane with her whip, and said, musingly:—­

“A man should seek to know only the languages, philosophy, and other useful learning.  Useless knowledge has cost many a man his head.”

After a long pause she turned to me with a broad smile:—­

“But it is usually not dangerous so long as it does not lodge in the tongue.”

I replied quickly:—­

“Fraeulein, when my tongue makes a fool of me, I pray God I may lose it.”

“God save all fools by a like fate,” she answered.

I was sure she did not mean to include me in the category of fools.

This conversation revealed to me two facts:  first, I learned that by some means—­possibly the ring Max wore—­this girl, Yolanda, whoever she might be, knew Max.  Second, I discovered in myself a dangerous propensity to talk, and of all sure roads to ruin the tongue is the surest.  A man’s vanity prompts him to be witty; hatred prompts him to cut his enemy, and his love of truth often prompts him to speak it at the wrong time.  These three motives combined often prompt him to lose his head.  Max and I were on dangerous ground, and one untimely error might make it perilous.

We travelled rapidly, and near midnight of the second day out of Metz we reached Cinq Voies on the Somme.  The village, consisting of a large inn, a church, a priest’s house, and a farrier’s shop, is situate at the meeting of five roads, from which the hamlet takes its name.  One road led down from Cambrai and Ghent in the north, one from Liege in the northeast, and the one over which we had travelled from Metz came out of the southeast.  Two roads led westward to Peronne.  One followed the right bank of the Somme, passed Peronne, and thence on to Amiens.  Another road followed the left bank of the Somme, touched Peronne, and thence ran southwesterly to Paris.

When we reached Cinq Voies on the Somme—­within eight leagues of Peronne—­we halted for supper, very tired and weary.  While supper was preparing, we held a consultation, and determined to rest there for the night.  I advised against this course, believing that the duke would pass that way on his road from Ghent to Peronne.  But Yolanda’s sweet face was pinched by weariness, and Twonette was sound asleep.  Our horses, I feared, might fail, and leave us hopelessly in the lurch.  Therefore, I gave the command to offsaddle, and we halted at the inn for the night.

Our host told me his house was full of guests who had arrived two hours before, but he found a room for Yolanda and Twonette, and told Max and me to sleep, if we could, on the tap-room floor.  After an hour on the hard boards I went to the stable, and, rousing a groom, gave him a silver crown for the privilege of sleeping on a wisp of hay.  I fell asleep at once and must have slept like the dead, for the dawn was breaking when one of our squires wakened me.  I could not believe that I had been sleeping five minutes, but the dim morning light startled me, and I ordered the horses saddled.