There was certainly something of insolency in his tone, and being already ruffled with the King’s manner of receiving my news, I did not feel very amiably disposed towards this stranger, who looked at me under his beaver with a glance of mockery. "Master Rudd, if it please him, will tell me more at large," says the man again, while I was still considering of how I should deal with him. "You heard the King’s command, Master Lameray——" "Pardon—De Lameray," says he, interrupting me. "De Lameray," I said, making a bow. "The château of St Aubyn-le-cauf, your nobility may not be aware, lies something less than two miles along the road towards Dampierre, and if you hurry you may yet be in time to do the King’s bidding." "And perhaps Master Rudd would be pleased to accompany me?" he said, smiling upon me. "No," I said shortly, and thinking that perhaps his mockery sprang of my dirty and dishevelled aspect, I left him there, and strode away, with a bare acknowledgment of his salutation, to the quarters I had formerly occupied in the camp. There, having bathed and got me into clean raiment, and bound up the wound in my leg, no great matter, and eaten pretty ravenously, I set off to find Raoul de Torcy, who was of my own age, and had been my particular friend ever since I came to France. "What news of the camp?" I said, after I had greeted him, for having been absent for a fortnight I knew nothing of what had happened of late. "The question I myself would ask," he said, "for I only returned from Paris last night." "From Paris?" I said. "Yes. I set off thither the very day after you left us, having friends there who are also very good friends of the King, and yet know all the counsels of the Leaguers. I rode thence the day before yesterday, bearing news of a plot to kill the King." "Another?" I exclaimed. "I know not what you mean by ’another,’ my friend; but there is assuredly one afoot, and I rode apace with the news, and was chased well-nigh all the way from Paris by a fellow that had the very cut of a Leaguer. But I shook him off yesterday evening, just before the storm broke, and came safe into camp, and little enough I had for my pains." "Why, did the King flout you too?" I asked. "He laughed, and took it very lightly. ’Another?’ says he, just as you did: ’I hear of plots as regularly as I eat my dinner.’ And then he went off arm in arm with Rosny and paid no more heed to me." Whereupon I told him of my own errand, and of what I had seen at the château, and how the King had received me. "I love our Henry," said Raoul, with a shrug, when I had made an end; "but I sometimes question whether he be not too careless to make a good king for France. However, we have done our part; if any ill befalls him, it will not be for want of warning."