“Well, well, my friend,” said Henri d’Effiat, “I may some day, perhaps, have these horses to take back; but in the mean time take this great purse of gold, which I have well-nigh lost two or three times, and thou shalt pay for me everywhere.  The money wearies me.”

“Monsieur le Marechal did not so, Monsieur.  He had been superintendent of finances, and he counted every farthing he paid out of his own hand.  I do not think your estates would have been in such good condition, or that you would have had so much money to count yourself, had he done otherwise; have the goodness, therefore, to keep your purse, whose contents, I dare swear, you do not know.”

“Faith, not I.”

Grandchamp sent forth a profound sigh at his master’s disdainful exclamation.

“Ah, Monsieur le Marquis!  Monsieur le Marquis!  When I think that the great King Henri, before my eyes, put his chamois gloves into his pocket to keep the rain from spoiling them; when I think that Monsieur de Rosni refused him money when he had spent too much; when I think—­”

“When thou dost think, thou art egregiously tedious, my old friend,” interrupted his master; “and thou wilt do better in telling me what that black figure is that I think I see walking in the mire behind us.”

“It looks like some poor peasant woman who, perhaps, wants alms of us.  She can easily follow us, for we do not go at much of a pace in this sand, wherein our horses sink up to the hams.  We shall go to the Landes perhaps some day, Monsieur, and you will see a country all the same as this sandy road, and great, black firs all the way along.  It looks like a churchyard; this is an exact specimen of it.  Look, the rain has ceased, and we can see a little ahead; there is nothing but furze-bushes on this great plain, without a village or a house.  I don’t know where we can pass the night; but if you will take my advice, you will let us cut some boughs and bivouac where we are.  You shall see how, with a little earth, I can make a hut as warm as a bed.”

“I would rather go on to the light I see in the horizon,” said Cinq-Mars; “for I fancy I feel rather feverish, and I am thirsty.  But fall back, I would ride alone; rejoin the others and follow.”

Grandchamp obeyed; he consoled himself by giving Germain, Louis, and Etienne lessons in the art of reconnoitring a country by night.

Meanwhile, his young master was overcome with fatigue.  The violent emotions of the day had profoundly affected his mind; and the long journey on horseback, the last two days passed almost without nourishment, owing to the hurried pressure of events, the heat of the sun by day, the icy coldness of the night, all contributed to increase his indisposition and to weary his delicate frame.  For three hours he rode in silence before his people, yet the light he had seen in the horizon seemed no nearer; at last he ceased to follow it with his eyes, and his head, feeling heavier and heavier,