“Now,” he cried, “I know that I am chosen!  And that we were instruments to do this thing from the day when the hen saved us in the haycart in Paris!  Now I know that all is forgiven and all is ordained, and that the faithful of Angers shall to-morrow live and not die!” And with a face radiant, yet solemn, he walked to the young man’s stirrup.

An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him.  “How far ahead are they?” he asked.  His tone, hard and matter-of-fact, was little in harmony with the other’s enthusiasm.

“They are resting a league before you, at the ferry.  You are in pursuit of them?”

“Yes.”

“Not alone?”

“No.”  The young man’s look as he spoke was grim.  “I have five behind me—­of your kidney, M. la Tribe.  They are from the Arsenal.  They have lost one his wife, and one his son.  The three others—­”

“Yes?”

“Sweethearts,” Tignonville answered dryly.  And he cast a singular look at the minister.

But La Tribe’s mind was so full of one matter, he could think only of that.

“How did you hear of the letters?” he asked.

“The letters?”

“Yes.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

La Tribe stared.  “Then why are you following him?” he asked.

“Why?” Tignonville echoed, a look of hate darkening his face.  “Do you ask why we follow—­” But on the name he seemed to choke and was silent.

By this time his men had come up, and one answered for him.

“Why are we following Hannibal de Tavannes?” he said sternly.  “To do to him as he has done to us!  To rob him as he has robbed us—­of more than gold!  To kill him as he has killed ours, foully and by surprise!  In his bed if we can!  In the arms of his wife if God wills it!”

The speaker’s face was haggard from brooding and lack of sleep, but his eyes glowed and burned, as his fellows growled assent.

“’Tis simple why we follow,” a second put in.  “Is there a man of our faith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest of this black brood—­though it be his brother?  If so, God’s curse on him!”

“Amen!  Amen!”

“So, and so only,” cried the first, “shall there be faith in our land!  And our children, our little maids, shall lie safe in their beds!”

“Amen!  Amen!”

The speaker’s chin sank on his breast, and with his last word the light died out of his eyes.  La Tribe looked at him curiously, then at the others.  Last of all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that he surprised a faint smile.  Yet Tignonville’s tone when he spoke was grave enough.

“You have heard,” he said.  “Do you blame us?”

“I cannot,” the minister answered, shivering.  “I cannot.”  He had been for a while beyond the range of these feelings; and in the greenwood, under God’s heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on him.  Yet he could not blame men who had suffered as these had suffered; who were maddened, as these were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it is possible for one man to inflict on another.  “I dare not,” he continued sorrowfully.  “But in God’s name I offer you a higher and a nobler errand.”