‘I have no fears now,’ returned Berenger.  ’We have not been bore through so much not to be brought together at last.  Soon, soon shall we have her!  A minister so distinguished as Isaac Gardon is sure to be heard of either at La Rochelle, Montauban, or Nimes, their great gathering places.

‘For Rochelle, then?’ said Philip.

’Even so.  We will be off early to-morrow, and from thence, if we do not find her there, as I expected, we shall be able to write the thrice happy news to those at home.

Accordingly, the little cavalcade started in good time, in the cool of the morning of the bright long day of early June, while apple petal floated down on them in the lanes like snow, and nightingales in every hedge seemed to give voice and tune to Berenger’s eager, yearning hopes.

Suddenly there was a sound of horse’s feet in the road before them, and as they drew aside to make way, a little troop of gendarmes filled the narrow lane.  The officer, a rough, harsh-looking man, laid his hand on Berenger’s bridle, with the words, ’In the name of the King!

Philip began to draw his sword with one hand, and with the other to urge his horse between the officer and his brother, but Berenger called out, ’Back!  This gentleman mistakes my person.  I am the Baron de Ribaumont, and have a safe-conduct from the King.

‘What king?’ demanded the officer.

’From King Charles.

‘I arrest you,’ said the officer, ’in the name of King Henry III, and of the Queen Regent Catherine.

‘The King dead?’ Exclaimed Berenger.

’On the 30th of May.  Now, sir.

‘Your warrant—­your cause?’ still demanded Berenger.

’There will be time enough for that when you are safely lodged, said the captain, roughly pulling at the rein, which he had held all the time.

‘What, no warrant?’ shouted Philip, ‘he is a mere robber!’ and with drawn sword he was precipitating himself on the captain, when another gendarme, who had been on the watch, grappled with him, and dragged him off his horse before he could strike a blow.  The other two English, Humfrey Holt and John Smithers, strong full-grown men, rode in fiercely to the rescue, and Berenger himself struggled furiously to loose himself from the captain, and deliver his brother.  Suddenly there was the report of a pistol:  poor Smithers fell, there was a moment of standing aghast, and in that moment the one man and the two youths were each pounced on by three or four gendarmes, thrown down and pinioned.

‘Is this usage for gentlemen?’ exclaimed Berenger, as he was roughly raised to his feet.

‘The King’s power has been resisted,’ was all the answer; and when he would have been to see how it was with poor Smithers, one of the men-at-arms kicked over the body with sickening brutality, saying, ’Dead enough, heretic and English carrion!

Philip uttered a cry of loathing horror, and turned white; Berenger, above all else, felt a sort of frenzied despair as he thought of the peril of the boy who had been trusted to him.