"I should be sorry, Armand, that our good friend Brown Keroual should persist in conduct which may make a division amongst different classes of the Protestants, at the very moment that we require union for our common safety. You will therefore let him know at once, that I am determined, upon my own lands, to put an end to this system; that my forest and my moors shall no longer hold these _chauve-souris_. The day after to-morrow I shall begin my operations, and as I know the country as well as any man in it, shall have no difficulty in putting my plans in execution. Keroual knows me for a man of my word, and I must not have one single man disguised and in arms any where within my jurisdiction at the end of three days from this time." The man smiled with a grim but less dissatisfied look than the Count had expected. "They none of them wish to give you offence, sir," he replied, "and can easily move off your lands to others." "That they must do," replied the Count, "but there is something more still to be said. When once off my lands, they may doubtless consider that the matter is at an end; but such is not the case." "My Lord, if you follow us off your lands," said Armand, dropping farther disguise, and making use of the pronoun of the first person, "if you follow us off your own lands, you must take the consequences." "I am always prepared to do so," replied the Count. "My purpose is not of course to follow any of you off my own lands, unless I am summoned to do so; but if I am summoned, which will immediately be the case if there be any renewal of outrages whatsoever, I shall most assuredly use my whole power, and employ my whole means, to put down that which I know to be wrong."