"Pierre, do you take this ring and dagger. Should I be taken, I shall assuredly be searched to see whether I am the bearer of despatches. I should grieve to lose these gifts, as much as I should to fall into the hands of the Catholics. Keep them for me, until you learn that there is no chance of my ever returning to claim them; and then give them to my cousin, and beg him in my name to return the ring to the Queen of Navarre, and the dagger to the young prince." "I like not all these provisions," Pierre said to himself. "Hitherto the master has never, since I first knew him, given any commands to me, as to what was to be done in case he were captured or killed. It seems to me that the danger here is as nothing to that he has often run before, and yet he must have some sort of foreboding of evil. If I were not a Huguenot, I would vow a score of pounds of candles, to be burnt at the shrine of the Holy Virgin, if the master gets safe out of yonder town." Philip rode on across the bridge, and entered the gates without question. Up to this time, his followers had kept close behind him; but now, in accordance with his instructions, they dropped behind. He continued his way to the principal square, rode up to an inn, entered the courtyard, and gave his horse to the stableman. "Give it a feed," he said, "and put it in the stable. I shall not require it until the afternoon." Then he went into the public room, called for food and wine, and sat down. The tables were well nigh full, for there were many strangers in the town. After a first glance at the newcomer, none paid him any attention. Pierre and the two men had, in accordance with his instructions, passed the inn they had seen him enter, and put up at other places. There was a loud buzz of conversation, and Philip listened attentively to that between four gentlemen who had just sat down at the next table to him. Three of them had come in together, and the fourth joined them, just as Philip's meal was brought to him. "Well, have you heard any news at the governor's, Maignan?" one of them asked the last comer. "Bad news. Conde and the Admiral are not letting the grass grow under their feet. They have captured not only Niort, as we heard yesterday, but Parthenay." "Peste! That is bad news, indeed. What a blunder it was to let them slip through their fingers, when they might have seized them with two or three hundred men, in Burgundy." "It seems to me that they are making just the same mistake here," another put in. "As Jeanne of Navarre is well nigh as dangerous as the Admiral himself, why don't they seize her and her cub, and carry them to Paris?"