"I will show you what will tell us the hour as well as if we had," answered De Thou. "Look out there in the west! Do you see what a red light the sun still casts upon those heavy masses of cloud that are coming up? Now the sun goes down at seven; so you may judge it can scarce be eight yet." "_Cinq quatre!_" cried Montressor, throwing. "I have lost, after all--Monsieur De Thou, will you bet me a thousand crowns that it is not past eight by the village clock of Mesnil St. Loup?" "No, indeed!" replied the President; "I neither wish to win your money, Monsieur Montressor, nor to lose my own. Nor do I see how such a bet could be determined." "Oh! if you do not take the bet, there is no use of inquiring how it might be determined," rejoined Montressor. "Monseigneur," he continued, turning to the Duke of Orleans, who had just swept away his last fortification, and was laying out a flower-garden in its place; "can you tell how in the name of fortune these chairs and this table came here, when all the rest of the place is as empty as your Highness's purse?" "Or as your head, Montressor," answered the Duke. "But the truth is, they were the property of poor old Père Le Rouge, who lived for many years in these ruins,--half-knave, half-madman,--till they tried and burnt him for a sorcerer down in the wood there at the foot of the hill. Since then it has been called the Sorcerer's Grove, and the country people are not fond of passing through it, which has doubtless saved the old Conjuror's furniture from being burnt for firewood; for none of the old women in the neighbourhood dare come to fetch it, or infallibly it would undergo the same fate as its master." "So, that wood is called the Sorcerer's Grove," said St. Ibal, laughing: "that is the reason your Highness brought us round the other way, is it not?" Gaston of Orleans coloured a good deal at a jest which touched too near one of his prevailing weaknesses; for no one was more tinctured with the superstition of the day than himself, yet no one was more ashamed of such credulity. "No, no!" answered he; "I put no faith in Père Le Rouge and his prophecies. He made too great a mistake in my own case to show himself to me since his predictions have proved false, I will answer for him." "Why, what did he predict about you, Monseigneur?" asked De Thou, who knew the faith which the Duke still placed in astrology.