Although both the voices were strange to Lagardere, the voice of this second shadow seemed to denote a person of better breeding than his companion, a person accustomed to command when the other was accustomed to cajole. Also, it was decidedly the voice of a young man. Whoever the speaker might be, he certainly was not the crabbed old Marquis de Caylus. Lagardere endeavored eagerly but unsuccessfully to see the face of the speaker. Night had by this time fallen completely. The moat was as black as a wolf's mouth, and the shadow that was muffled in a cloak held a corner of it so raised that it would have concealed his visage if the gorge had been flooded with moonlight. "Who would not?" Lagardere answered, with a swagger which seemed to him appropriate to a light-hearted assassin. The shadow gave him commands. "When ten o'clock strikes, tap at this window with your sword." He pointed as he spoke to the wall of the castle, and in that wall Lagardere, peering through the obscurity, could faintly discern a window about a man's height from the moat. The speaker went on: "A woman will open. Whisper very low, 'I am here.'" Involuntarily Lagardere echoed the last words, "I am here," and added, "The motto of Nevers." There was annoyance in the well-bred voice as it questioned, sharply: "What do you know of Nevers?" Peyrolles respectfully answered for the sham Saldagno: "Monseigneur, they all know whom they are to meet. How they know I cannot tell, but they do know. But they are to be trusted." The shadow shrugged his shoulders and resumed his instructions: "The woman will hand you a child, a baby a few months old. Take it at once to the Inn." He paused for a moment and then said, slowly: "I trust you are not tender-hearted." Lagardere protested with voice and gesture. "You pain me," he declared. Apparently satisfied, the shadow went on: "If the girl should die in your arms, no one will blame you, and your fifty pistoles will be a hundred. 'Tis but a quick nip of finger and thumb on an infant's neck. Do you understand?" "What I do not understand," retorted Lagardere, "is why you do not do the job yourself and save your money." It was now Peyrolles's turn to be annoyed. "Rascal!" he exclaimed, angrily. But the man he called monseigneur restrained him. "Calm, Peyrolles, calm! For the very good reason, inquisitive gentleman, that the lady in question would know my voice or the voice of my friend here, and as I do not wish her to think that I have anything to do with to-night's work--" Lagardere interrupted, bluffly: "Say no more. I'm your man." Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in the distance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have been told to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causeway to the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest." The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, the fool amorist. Come."