her letter and apparently found it satisfactory. At any rate we
saw nothing of her. Madame Claude was busy boiling simples, and
tending the messenger's hurts. And it seemed natural that I
should take command.

There could be no doubt--at any rate we had none that the assault
on the courier had taken place at the Vidame's instance. The
only wonder was that he had not simply cut his throat and taken
the letter. But looking back now it seems to me that grown men
mingled some childishness with their cruelty in those days--days
when the religious wars had aroused our worst passions. It was
not enough to kill an enemy. It pleased people to make--I speak
literally--a football of his head, to throw his heart to the
dogs. And no doubt it had fallen in with the Vidame's grim
humour that the bearer of Pavannes' first love letter should
enter his mistress's presence, bleeding and plaistered with mud.
And that the riff-raff about our own gates should have part in
the insult.

Bezers' wrath would be little abated by the issue of the affair,
or the justice I had done on one of his men. So we looked well
to bolts, and bars, and windows, although the castle is well-nigh
impregnable, the smooth rock falling twenty feet at least on
every side from the base of the walls. The gatehouse, Pavannes
had shown us, might be blown up with gunpowder indeed, but we
prepared to close the iron grating which barred the way half-way
up the ramp. This done, even if the enemy should succeed in
forcing an entrance he would only find himself caught in a trap--
in a steep, narrow way exposed to a fire from the top of the
flanking walls, as well as from the front. We had a couple of