There was breakfast served by Maga in the dark—­hot milk, and a strange mess of eggs and meat.  For some reason no one thought of relighting the fire, and although the ashes glowed we shivered until the food put warmth in us.

By the light of the smoky lamp I thought that Monty wore a strangely divided air, between gloom and exultation.  Fred had been wide awake and talking with him since long before first cock-crow and was obviously out of sorts, shaking his head at intervals and unwilling more than to poke at his food with a fork.  I crossed the room to sit beside them, and came in for the tail end of the conversation.

“I might have known it, Didums, when I let you go on alone.  I’ll never forgive myself.  I had a premonition and disobeyed it.  You pose as a cast-iron materialist with no more ambition than money enough to retrieve your damned estates, and all the while you’re the most romantic ass who ever wore out saddle-leather!  Found it, have you?  Then God help us all!  I know what’s coming!  You’re about to ’vert back to Crusader days, and try to do damsilly deeds of chivalry without the war-horse or the suit of mail!”

“No need for you to join me, Fred. You take charge of the others and get them away to safety.”

“Take charge of hornets!  I’d leave you, of course, like a shot!  But can you see Will Yerkes, for instance, riding off and leaving you to play Don Quixote?  Damn you, Didums, can’t you see—?”

“Destiny, Fred. Manifest destiny.”

“Can’t you see crusading is dead as a dead horse?”

“So am I, old man.  I’m no use but to do this very thing.  I can serve these people.  If I’m killed, there’ll be a howl in the papers.  If I’m taken, there’ll be a row in parliament.”

“You don’t intend to be taken—­I know you!”

“Honest, Fred, I—­”

“Have I known you all these years to be fooled now?  Smelling rats ’ud be subtle to it—­I can feel the air bristling!  You mean to raise the Montdidier banner and die under it, last of your race.  But you’re not last, you bally ass!”

“Last in the direct line, Fred.”

“Yes, but there’s that rotter Charles ready to inherit!  If you’re bent on suicide—­”

“I’m not.  You know I’m not.”

“—­you might have the decency to kill that miserable cousin first and bring the line to an end in common honor!  He’ll survive you, and as sure as I sit here and swear at you, he’ll bring the Montdidier name into worse disgrace than Judas Iscariot’s!”

“I’ve no intention of suicide, Fred. I assure you—­”

But Fred waved the argument aside contemptuously, and stood up to gather our attention.

“Listen!” He thrust forward his Van Dyke beard that valiantly strove to hide a chin like a piece of flint.  “Monty has found the robbers’ nest that used to belong to his infernal ancestors.  I charge any of you who count yourselves his friends to help me prevent him from behaving like an idiot!”