“A king must think of his people,” I reminded him.

“The fowl in the pot?  To be sure.  So I will—­to-morrow,” he replied.  And in the end he would be obeyed.  I took my leave of him as if for the night, and retired, leaving him at play with the Duke of Epernon.  But an hour later, toward eight o’clock, his majesty, who had made an excuse to withdraw to his closet, met me outside the eastern gate of the Louvre.

He was masked, and attended only by Coquet, his master of the household.  I too wore a mask and was esquired by Maignan, under whose orders were four Swiss—­whom I had chosen because they were unable to speak French—­guarding the prisoner Andrew.  I bade Maignan follow the innkeeper’s directions, and we proceeded in two parties through the streets on the left bank of the river, past the Chatelet and Bastile, until we reached an obscure street near the water, so narrow that the decrepit wooden houses shut out well-nigh all view of the sky.  Here the prisoner halted and called upon me to fulfill the terms of my agreement.  I bade Maignan therefore to keep with the Swiss at a distance of fifty paces, but to come up should I whistle or otherwise give the alarm; and myself with the king and Andrew proceeded onward in the deep shadow of the houses.  I kept my hand on my pistol, which I had previously shown to the prisoner, intimating that on the first sign of treachery I should blow out his brains.  However, despite precaution, I felt uncomfortable to the last degree.  I blamed myself severely for allowing the king to expose himself and the country to this unnecessary danger; while the meanness of the locality, the fetid air, the darkness of the night, which was wet and tempestuous, and the uncertainty of the event lowered my spirits, and made every splash in the kennel and stumble on the reeking, slippery pavements—­matters over which the king grew merry—­seem no light troubles to me.

Arriving at a house, which, if we might judge in the darkness, seemed to be of rather greater pretensions than its fellows, our guide stopped, and whispered to us to mount some steps to a raised wooden gallery, which intervened between the lane and the doorway.  On this, besides the door, a couple of unglazed windows looked out.  The shutter of one was ajar, and showed us a large, bare room, lighted by a couple of rushlights.  Directing us to place ourselves close to this shutter, the innkeeper knocked at the door in a peculiar fashion, and almost immediately entered, going at once into the lighted room.  Peering cautiously through the window we were surprised to find that the only person within, save the newcomer, was a young woman, who, crouching over a smoldering fire, was crooning a lullaby while she attended to a large black pot.

“Good evening, mistress!” said the innkeeper, advancing to the fire with a fair show of nonchalance.

“Good evening, Master Andrew,” the girl replied, looking up and nodding, but showing no sign of surprise at his appearance.  “Martin is away, but he may return at any moment.”