‘Demons forget not,’ was the reply.  ‘At him, imps!’ And a whole circle of hobgoblins closed upon with their tridents, forks, and other horrible implements, to drive him back within two tall barred gates, which, illuminated by red flames, were to form the ghastly prison of the vanquished.  Perhaps fresh indignities would have been attempted, had not the King of Navarre thrown himself on his side, shared with him the brunt of all the grotesque weapons, and battled them off with infinite spirit and address, shielding him as it were from their rude insults by his own dexterity and inviolability, though retreating all the time till the infernal gates were closed on both.

Then Henry of Navarre, who never forgot a face, held out his hand, saying, ’Tartarus is no region of good omen for friendships, M. de Ribaumont, but, for lack of yonder devil’s claw, here is mine.  I like to meet a comrade who can strike a hearty blow, and ask a hearty pardon.’

‘I was too hot, Sire,’ confessed Berenger, with one of his ingenuous blushes, ‘but he enraged me.’

‘He means mischief.’ said Henry.  ’Remember, if you are molested respecting this matter, that you have here a witness that you did the part of a gentleman.’

Berenger bowed his thanks, and began something about the honour, but his eye anxiously followed the circuit on which Eustacie was carried and the glance was quickly remarked.

’How?  Your heart is spinning in that Mahometan paradise, and that is what put such force into your fists.  Which of the houris is it?  The little one with the wistful eyes, who looked so deadly white, and shrieked out when the devilry overturned you?  Eh!  Monsieur, you are a happy man.’

‘I should be, Sire;’ and Berenger was on the point of confiding the situation of his affairs to this most engaging of princes, when a fresh supply of prisoners, chased with wild antics and fiendish yells by the devils, came headlong in on them; and immediately, completing, as Henry said, the galimatias of mythology, a pasteboard cloud was propelled on the stage, and disclosed the deities Mercury and Cupid, who made a complimentary address to the three princely brothers, inciting them to claim the nymphs whom their valour had defended, and lead them through the mazes of a choric celestial dance.

This dance had been the special device of Monsieur and the ballet-master, and during the last three days the houris had been almost danced off their legs with rehearsing it morning, noon, and night, but one at least of them was scarcely in a condition for its performance.  Eustacie, dizzied at the first minute by the whirl of her Elysian merry-go-round, had immediately after become conscious of that which she had been too childish to estimate merely in prospect, the exposure to universal gaze.  Strange staring eyes, glaring lights, frightful imps seemed to wheel round her in an intolerable delirious succession.  Her only