"Ay, and many of the good fellows here," replied Estoc, "would not take part against us, especially to force poor Rose into a marriage that she hates. Chazeul is little loved by any one; and the Marchioness is hated even by her people. I have heard them speak of her.--But now I will waste no more time. Farewell, Monsieur de la Tremblade: I will be back as soon as I have got the paper." "God give you success," answered the priest; and Estoc, retiring through the door, closed it after him. Then issuing forth into the country, he crept quietly away under cover of some bushes which approached the walls, till upon the verge of the wood he found two of his men waiting for him. With them he returned to the village, called the rest of his little band together, paid the cottagers, whom he roused from their slumbers, for the accommodation he had received, and rode on towards Chazeul, giving out that it was not his intention to return. After proceeding for five miles on the way, to a spot which the boy was obliged to pass on his road from the one château to the other, the old soldier halted his men, and ordered them to feed their horses with some corn which they had brought in their bags. A vigilant watch was kept in the meantime upon the side of the high bare hill, down which came the road from Chazeul, and at the foot of which wandered the Huisne; but one half hour passed after another, and no one appeared. All was still and silent, the stars twinkling out above, and the low wind whispering through the yellow grass that covered the wide extend of sloping land between them and a wood above. The road was scarcely to be traced by the eye, except where its sandy banks, against the deep back ground of the trees, marked the spot at which it issued forth from the forest; but upon that point Estoc kept his eyes fixed without seeing any dark object cross the lines, till the sky overhead began to assume a reddish hue, and the light spread gradually around. The day at length fully dawned, and the old soldier was giving his men directions to scatter themselves along the edge of the wood, and close round the boy as soon as he appeared, when the figure of some one on horseback suddenly issued forth upon the side of the hill, and came down at a quick pace, apparently not remarking that there was any one below, till he was half way to the bottom of the descent. Then, however, the boy suddenly pulled in his bridle rein, and seemed to hesitate; but the next instant, instead of turning back to the wood, he darted off to the left, with the intention of crossing the Huisne farther up. Estoc, however, detached three of his men along the low ground on the bank to cut him off there, while he rode up to deprive him of his retreat into the wood, and the rest of the party swept over the side of the hill in a semicircle, gradually drawing closer and closer round the poor page, who doubled before them like a hare before the hounds.