“You have ridden far and fast to-day, my sir.  Your horses were all but done for.  Yet there is no cloud of war in the sky and you are too far from Paris to be honourable envoys.  I hope you like our country?”

I dodged his tentative attempt at prying by asking him a question myself.

“You don’t seem to have many guests, good host?  Yet do I hardly wonder at it.  You are all but swallowed up in the green and too far from the main travelled road.”

The little man sighed and said in sad accents:  “Too true, yet the Scarlet Dragon was once a thriving place, a fine money-breeding house.  Before my son went away—­”

I interrupted him.  “Your son, what is he, and where is he now?”

The other became visibly agitated and puffed at his pipe some minutes before replying.

“Alas! worthy sir,” he said at last in a lower key, “my son dare not return here for reasons I cannot divulge.  Indeed, this was no cheerful house for the boy.  He had his ambitions and he left me to pursue them.”

“What does he do, this youngster?” interrupted Michael, in his gruffest tones.  The landlord started.

“Indeed, good sir, I could not tell you, for I know not myself.”

“Humph!” grunted my sullen companion; but I observed his suspicious little eyes fixed persistently on the man of the inn.

I turned the talk, which had threatened to languish.  The old man did not relish the questions about his son, and began deploring the poor crops.  At this juncture an indefinable feeling that we were losing time in stopping at this lonely place came over me.  I am not superstitious, but I swear that I felt ill at ease and confused in my plans.

On bended knee I had sworn to my lady that I would bring back to her the fugitive unharmed, and I would never return to her empty-handed, confessing failure.  Michael’s queer behaviour disconcerted me.  From the outset of the chase he had turned sour and inaccessible, and now he was so ill-tempered that I feared he would pick a quarrel at the slightest provocation with our host.

With a strange sinking at the heart I asked about our horses.

“They will be attended to, my sirs; my servant is a good boy.  He is handy, although he can’t get about lively, for he was thrown in a turnip field from our only donkey.”

I was in no mood for this sort of chatter and quizzed the fellow as to our beds.

“We must be off early in the morning; we have important business to transact at Amboise before the sun sets to-morrow,” I testily remarked.

“At Amboise—­h’m, h’m!  Well, I don’t mind telling you that you can reach Amboise by stroke of noon; and so you have business at Amboise, eh?”

I saw Michael’s brow lower at this wheedling little man’s question, and answered rather hastily and imprudently:—­

“Yes, business, my good man, important business, as you will see when we return this road to-morrow night with the prize we are after.”