I did not ask him what trouble he meant, but ran indoors to buckle on my sword, and tell Marie and Croisette of the ally I had secured.  They were much pleased, as was natural; so that we took the road in excellent spirits intending to reach the city in the afternoon.  But Marie’s horse cast a shoe, and it was some time before we could find a smith.  Then at Etampes, where we stopped to lunch, we were kept an unconscionable time waiting for it.  And so we approached Paris for the first time at sunset.  A ruddy glow was at the moment warming the eastern heights, and picking out with flame the twin towers of Notre Dame, and the one tall tower of St. Jacques la Boucherie.  A dozen roofs higher than their neighbours shone hotly; and a great bank of cloud, which lay north and south, and looked like a man’s hand stretched over the city, changed gradually from blood-red to violet, and from violet to black, as evening fell.

Passing within the gates and across first one bridge and then another, we were astonished and utterly confused by the noise and hubbub through which we rode.  Hundreds seemed to be moving this way and that in the narrow streets.  Women screamed to one another from window to window.  The bells of half-a-dozen churches rang the curfew.  Our country ears were deafened.  Still our eyes had leisure to take in the tall houses with their high-pitched roofs, and here and there a tower built into the wall; the quaint churches, and the groups of townsfolk—­sullen fellows some of them with a fierce gleam in their eyes—–­who, standing in the mouths of reeking alleys, watched us go by.

But presently we had to stop.  A crowd had gathered to watch a little cavalcade of six gentlemen pass across our path.  They were riding two and two, lounging in their saddles and chattering to one another, distainfully unconscious of the people about them, or the remarks they excited.  Their graceful bearing and the richness of their dress and equipment surpassed anything I had ever seen.  A dozen pages and lackeys were attending them on foot, and the sound of their jests and laughter came to us over the heads of the crowd.

While I was gazing at them, some movement of the throng drove back Bure’s horse against mine.  Bure himself uttered a savage oath; uncalled for so far as I could see.  But my attention was arrested the next moment by Croisette, who tapped my arm with his riding whip.  “Look!” he cried in some excitement, “is not that he?”

I followed the direction of the lad’s finger—­as well as I could for the plunging of my horse which Bure’s had frightened—­and scrutinized the last pair of the troop.  They were crossing the street in which we stood, and I had only a side view of them; or rather of the nearer rider.  He was a singularly handsome man, in age about twenty-two or twenty-three with long lovelocks falling on his lace collar and cloak of orange silk.  His face was sweet and kindly and gracious to a marvel.  But he was a stranger to me.