If I was to save Mlle. de Varion from the designs of the far-reaching secretary, it was time that I eluded the danger immediately confronting me. For a few moments after De Berquin uttered the speech last recorded, I stood silent, my eyes meeting his. "Come," he said, presently, impatiently giving several turns of his wrist so that his sword-point described arcs in the air before my eyes. "We wander from the subject. What service can you do me? Don't think you can keep me talking until your party happens to come up. I intend to kill you when I shall have counted twenty, unless before that time you make it appear worth my while to let you live. One, two, three--" His look showed that he had ceased to be amused at my situation. Alive, I had begun to bore him. It was time to make sure of his vengeance. His men stood on all sides to prevent my flight. At my least movement, he would thrust his rapier deep into my body. He went on counting. What could I offer him to make him stay his hand? Was there anything in the world that he might desire which it would appear to be in my power to give him? "Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen," he counted, taking exact note of the distance between us. As in a flash the idea came to me. "Monsieur," I said, loudly, so as to be plainly heard above his own voice, "let me go and I will deliver to you the Sieur de la Tournoire!" He had reached nineteen in his count. He stopped there and stared at me. "The Sieur de la Tournoire," he repeated, as if the idea of his taking the Sieur de la Tournoire were a new one. "You speak, monsieur," said I, quietly, "as if you had not come to these hills for the purpose of catching him." He looked at me with a kind of surprise, but said nothing in reply to my remark. "It is natural," thought I, "for him not to disclose his purpose, even when there is no use for him to conceal it." "I take La Tournoire?" he said, presently, half to himself. He stood thinking for a time, during which I supposed that he was considering the propriety of his personally making the capture, in view of the plan that I had overheard Montignac suggest to the governor, namely, that the spy should merely lure La Tournoire into an ambush where the governor's soldiers should make the seizure. The spy had doubtless received orders strictly in accordance with this plan, La Tournoire being considered too great game to be bagged by anything less than a company of soldiers. "Why not?" said I. "Whoever does so will receive a good price in addition to the gratitude of M. de la Chatre and that of the Duke of Guise. Indeed, the feat might even win you back the King's favor, which you say you have lost." "But suppose Montignac has other plans for the capture of this highly valued rebel?" said he.