But it was very plain that we could resist but little longer, and unless Biron should come within a few minutes, our case would be desperate indeed. In a fever of trouble I strove to think of some way whereby we might save the King, for I believed then, and I know now, that the loss of so great a man would have been a sore calamity for France and the world. And as I beat my wits on this matter, on a sudden I chanced to remember Henry’s hat and cloak that lay on the table in the great salon, and a device rushed into my mind. I durst not tell the King, who would assuredly have forbid it; but I drew Rosny aside, and whispered it to him. A light beamed upon his troubled face, and he bade me go, but secretly, lest the King should observe me. Accordingly I sought my friend Raoul, and desired him to draw the bolts of the great door as silently as might be, and to be ready to throw it open at a word. And then I crept into the salon, and taking the plumed hat and cloak from the table I donned them, and returned into the hall. Meanwhile Rosny had informed the King that Biron had been warned, and had led him up the stairs to a window in the front of the house, whence they might overlook a great space of the country and peradventure spy the marshal coming. The way being thus cleared for me, I mounted my horse, there in the hall, and giving Raoul the word, he flung the door open, and I dashed out, my horse leaping the steps at one stride. The enemy were all at the rear part of the house, so that there was none to see me as I galloped at a headlong pace towards the lane. But as I passed the stables they caught sight of me, as I designed they should, and then there was such a yell of consternation and rage as I had never heard before. A shot flew after me, but fell short, and in a trice I swept through the gateway, wheeled suddenly to the left, and set my horse to an easy canter, for it was not part of my plan to gallop clean away. I heard the shouts of the men as they swarmed after me, and turning in my saddle, yet keeping my face pretty well concealed, I saw them scurry into the copse where their horses were tethered, Lameray first among them. The dusk of evening and an autumn haze hung over the ground, so that I had good hope they would be deceived by the plume and the cloak, and not observe that the form thus clad was not that of Henry of Navarre, but of his humble servant Christopher Rudd.