As he spoke, the clear full note of a hunting-horn came swelling from the south-west; and in a moment after, another, much nearer to them, seemed to answer the first. Each, after giving breath to one solitary note, relapsed into silence; and such of the robbers as were awake, having listened till the signal met with a reply, bestirred themselves to rouse their sleeping companions, and to put some face of order upon the disarray which their revels had left behind. "Now, Sir Norman," cried he that they distinguished by the name of Le Blanc; "we shall see how Monseigneur rates your slackness in his cause. Will you tell him your long story of the siege of Perpignan?" "Pardie!" cried the other, "I care no more for him, than I do for you. Every man that stands before me on forest ground is but a man, and I will treat him as such." "Ha! ha! ha!" exclaimed his companion; "it were good to see thee bully a privy counsellor; why, thou darest as soon take a lion by the beard." "I dare pass my sword through his heart, were there need," answered the Norman; "but here they come,--stand you aside and let me deal with him." Approaching steps, and a rustling sound in the thick screen of wood already mentioned, as the long boughs were forced back by the passage of some person along the narrow pathway, announced the arrival of those for whom the robbers had been waiting. "Why, it is as dark as the pit of Acheron!" cried a deep voice amongst the trees. "Are we never to reach the light I saw from above? Oh, here it is.--Chauvelin, hold back that bough, it has caught my cloak." As the speaker uttered the last words, an armed servant, in Isabel and silver, appeared at the entrance of the path, holding back the stray branches, while Chavigni himself advanced into the circle of robbers, who stood grouped around in strange picturesque attitudes, some advancing boldly, as if to confront the daring stranger that thus intruded on their haunts, some gazing with a kind of curiosity upon the being so different from themselves, who had thus placed himself in sudden contact with them, some lowering upon him with bended heads, like wolves when they encounter a nobler beast of prey. The Statesman himself advanced in silence; and, with something of a frown upon his brow, glanced his eye firmly over every face around, nor was there an eye amongst them that did not sink before the stern commanding fire of his, as it rested for a moment upon the countenance of each, seeming calmly to construe the expression of the features, and read into the soul beneath, as we often see a student turn over the pages of some foreign book, and collect their meaning at a glance. "Well, Sirs," said he at length, "my knave tells me, that ye have failed in executing my commands."