While I gave myself the pleasure of annoying M. de la Chatre, I did not neglect the more important service imposed on me by Henri of Navarre. Accompanied only by Blaise Tripault, and travelling by night, I visited, one after another, the gentlemen named on my master's list, and used what eloquence I had, pointing out the expediency of assuring future security by making present sacrifices for our cause. Many of them required very little persuasion. On hearing that Henri of Navarre had given his word to defend his succession with his sword, they nobly left their estates and went to join his army, carrying with them what money and arms they could take. Thanks to the guidance of my men, they eluded the garrisons on the border. It was in early October, when the forests were turning yellow, brown, and red, and the fallen leaves began to lie in the roads, that I started out with Blaise Tripault to visit the gentleman named last on the list. "Monsieur," said Blaise, as we neared the end of our hidden forest road and were approaching the inn of Godeau, "I have in me a kind of feeling that this, being our last excursion, is likely to be the most dangerous. It would doubtless please Fortune to play us an ugly trick after having served us so well hitherto." "Nonsense!" I replied. "I believe that is what the famous Bussy d'Amboise said when he was warned not to keep his appointment with Mme. de Monsoreau," returned Blaise; "yet he was, none the less, killed by the rascals that lay in ambush with her husband." "Thanks to the most kingly King of France, Henri III., who advised M. de Monsoreau to force his wife to make the fatal appointment with Bussy. Thanks, also, to the truly grateful Duke of Anjou, who rewarded Bussy for his faithful service by concurring in the plot for his assassination." "The Duke was worse than the King, for the King has been loyal to his chosen favorites. Think of the monument he erected in honor of De Quelus, and the others who got their deaths in that great duel in the horse-market. _Par dieu!_ I should like to have seen those girl-men of the King and those Guisards killing one another!" "I have observed, Blaise, that you take an extraordinary pleasure in the slaughter of Guisards." "I was in Coligny's house, monsieur, on the night of the St. Bartholomew. I was one of those who, at the Admiral's command, fled to the roof, and from the roof of the next house I saw Coligny's body thrown into his courtyard, and the Duke of Guise turn it over with his foot and wipe the blood from the face to see if it were indeed my old captain's. Since then, the sight of the white cross of Guise stirs in me all the hell that my diabolical father transmitted to me. And I should not like to see you fall into the hands of this Chatre, who is the right arm of the Duke of Guise in Berry. That is why I give heed to the premonition that troubles me regarding this journey." "Certainly we cannot abandon the journey."