"What a fool I am!" thought Pierrot. "If it had been brandy, now, instead of wine, I should have been drunk again to a certainty." The following morning at an early hour the whole party were once more in the saddle, and the two Savoyards were ready as soon as the rest, seeming to think that they had fixed themselves upon the young gentleman's party. Edward examined the priming of his pistols before he set out, and ordered his followers to do so likewise; but, as the day before had been rainy, the precaution excited no remark, and the day's journey was begun. Four or five miles only had passed, however, when, at a spot where a road branched off through the forest to the left, the young Englishman suddenly drew in his rein and turned to the Savoyards, saying, "Here, my good friends, we have to part. That is your road, and this is mine." The two men seemed much surprised, and even ventured to remonstrate, commending highly the safety and sociability of travelling in company, and magnifying the great advantage it would be to him to have two such skilful smiths and horse-doctors in his train. They offered even to wait for him, if he had business on the road, and to attend to his horses without pay. But Edward Langdale was peremptory. "You said you were going to Savoy," he remarked. "The only way to get there is to follow the road before you. Moreover, it will be safer for you to go in other company than mine; for I am subject to fits of choler, and apt to shoot people if they offend me, as that good gentleman, Monsieur Pierrot la Grange, can inform you." "Ay, that he is!" exclaimed Pierrot. "I have got the bullet in my leg now." The two men looked at each other in astonishment, and made some exclamation in a language which Edward did not understand, but which did not sound like any species of Italian. "Ah!" said Jacques Beaupré, solemnly, "it is a sad infirmity he has. I always ride on the right side of him, for he does not aim so well on that side as on the left." The two men smiled; but a slight movement of Edward's hand toward his pistols soon restored their gravity, and he added, "Take my advice. Go on your way, and let me see you go, for I do not choose to be followed." A shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the rein was their only answer, and they rode away along the highroad before them. Edward watched them for some distance, and then turned into the smaller path on the left. "I do not like those men," he said, speaking to his followers. "Both their countenances are bad; and, as for the taller one of the two, I am certain I have seen him at Nantes. I think it was in the court of the chateau, the day we set out for Deux Rivières." "I think so too," said Jacques Beaupré. "He is too ugly to be forgotten easily; and, as for their tongue, I think it is Basque. I once heard that language spoken; and theirs is much more like it than Savoyard."