company for hours--nay, not until the next day when, towards
evening, the cry arose round me that we were within sight of
Cahors. Yes, there it lay below us, in its shallow basin,
surrounded by gentle hills. The domes of the cathedral, the
towers of the Vallandre Bridge, the bend of the Lot, where its
stream embraces the town--I knew them all. Our long journey was
over.

And I had but one idea. I had some time before communicated to
Croisette the desperate design I had formed--to fall upon Bezers
and kill him in the midst of his men in the last resort. Now the
time had come if the thing was ever to be done: if we had not
left it too long already. And I looked about me. There was some
confusion and jostling as we halted on the brow of the hill,
while two men were despatched ahead to announce the governor's
arrival, and Bure, with half a dozen spears, rode out as an
advanced guard.

The road where we stood was narrow, a shallow cutting winding
down the declivity of the hills. The horses were tired, It was a
bad time and place for my design, and only the coming night was
in my favour. But I was desperate.

Yet before I moved or gave a signal which nothing could recall, I
scanned the landscape eagerly, scrutinizing in turn the small,
rich plain below us, warmed by the last rays of the sun, the bare
hills here glowing, there dark, the scattered wood-clumps and
spinneys that filled the angles of the river, even the dusky line
of helm-oaks that crowned the ridge beyond--Caylus way. So near
our own country there might be help! If the messenger whom we