Chapter 44 - Page 2

treat the friends of your majesty."

"Who has treated you thus?"

"Mordieu, your people; or rather the people of; M. le Duc d'Anjou, who cried, 'Vive la Messe!' 'Vive Guise!' 'Vive François!--vive everyone, in fact, except the king."

"And what did you do to be treated thus?"

"I? nothing. What can a man do to a people? They recognized me for your majesty's friend, and that was enough."

"But Schomberg?"

"Well?"

"Did he not come to your aid? did he not defend you?"

"Corboeuf! he had enough to do on his own account."

"How so?"

"I left him in the hands of a dyer whose wife's cap he had pulled off, and who, with his five or six apprentices, seemed likely to make him pass an unpleasant quarter of an hour."

"Par la mordieu! and where did you leave my poor Schomberg? I will go myself to his aid. They may say," continued he, looking at Maugiron and Quelus, "that my friends abandon me, but they shall never say that I abandon them."

"Thanks, sire," said a voice behind Henri; "thanks, but here I am; I extricated myself without assistance; but, mein Gott! it was not without trouble."

"It is Schomberg's voice," cried all, "but where the devil is he?"

"Here I am," cried the voice; and indeed, in the corner of the room they saw something that looked not like a man but a shadow.

"Schomberg," cried the king, "where do you come from, and why are you that color?"

Indeed, Schomberg from head to foot was of a most beautiful blue.

"Der Teufel!" cried he, "the wretches! It is not wonderful that the people ran after me."

"But what is the matter?"

"The matter is, that they dipped me in a vat, the knaves; I believed that it was only water, but it was indigo."

"Oh, mordieu!" cried Quelus, bursting out laughing, "indigo is very dear; you must have carried away at least twenty crowns' worth of indigo."

"I wish you had been in my place."

"And you did not kill any one?"

"I left my poniard somewhere, that is all I know, up to the hilt in a sheath of flesh; but in a second I was taken, carried off, dipped in the vat, and almost drowned."

"And how did you get out of their hands?"

"By committing a cowardice, sire."

"What was that?"

"Crying, 'Vive la Ligue!'"

"That was like me; only they made me add, 'Vive le Duc d'Anjou!'" said D'Epernon.

"And I also," cried Schomberg; "but that is not all."

"What,