The fat ruffian sank down, with a heavy sigh of relief, on the log where Blaise had sat. He pulled down with him the thin fellow, who had been clutching his arm as if for support. The latter had a wavy, yellow beard, a feminine manner, and a dandified air, as if he might once have been a fop at the court before descending to the rags which now covered him. The fat hireling had a face on which both good nature and pugnacity were depicted. At present he was puffing from his exertions afoot. The most striking figure of the group was that of the tall rascal. He was gaunt, angular and erect, throwing out his chest, and wearing a solemn and meditative mien upon his weather-beaten face. This visage, long enough in its frame-work, was further extended by a great, pointed beard. There was something of grandeur about this cadaverous, frowning, Spanish-looking wreck of a warrior, as he stood thoughtfully leaning upon a huge two-handed sword, which he had doubtless obtained in the pillage of some old armory. "The place seems closed as tight as the gates of Heaven to a heretic," growled Barbemouche, scrutinizing the inn. The tall fellow here awoke from his reverie, and spoke in solemn, deliberate tones: "Would it not be well to wake up the landlord and try his wine?" "Wake up the devil!" cried Barbemouche angrily. "Nobody is to be waked up. We are simply to find out whether they are here, and then go back to the Captain. Your unquenchable thirst will take you to hell before your time, Francois." "It is astonishing," put in the fat fellow, looking at the tall, lean Francois, "how so few gallons of body can hold so many gallons of wine." "Would I had your body to fill with wine, Antoine," said Francois, longingly; and then, casting an unhappy look at the inn, he added, "and the wine to fill it with." "What are you shaking for, Jacques?" asked fat Antoine of his slim comrade at his side. "One would think you were afraid. Haven't you told us that love of fighting was the one passion of your life?" "Death of the devil, so it is!" replied Jacques in a soft voice, and with a lisp worthy of one of the King's painted minions. "That is what annoys me, for if this insignificant matter should come to a fight, and I should accidentally be killed in so obscure an affair, how could I ever again indulge my passion for fighting?" Meanwhile, Barbemouche had gone to the door and cautiously opened it, no one having barred it after my departure from the kitchen. I could hear the sound of Blaise's superb snoring, mingled with the less resonant efforts of the old couple. Barbemouche surveyed as much of the kitchen as the moonlight disclosed to him. Then he quietly shut the door and turned to his fellows. "It is well," he said. "The gentleman himself is snoring his lungs away just inside the door. There is another room, and it is there that the women must be. The others are probably in the shed. Let us go quietly, as it would not be polite to disturb their sleep."