I hastened toward him, Lanoy and Marcilly after me, and we three tried to follow the Moor’s glance, but could make out nothing, although Majolais, in his eagerness to show us what he saw, now plucked at our sleeves, now leaned half out of the embrasure, his arm stretched out toward the plain beneath him, the falcon screaming overhead, and he gibbering the whole time like the wild thing he was. At last I saw it--I, the youngest of the three. Running my eyes along the white, glistening road I made out a small speck. Seizing the dwarf’s hand I held it out in that direction and, nodding assent, he fairly danced with joy. “There!” I cried, “that little speck beyond the wood there! ’Tis that the imp means.” Then they saw too, and shading his eyes with his hands Lanoy looked hard and earnestly. “Some one rides there for his life,” he said. “I would we had the tube Cortoni made for the King. We would see him then as close as my hand.” “Perhaps he comes from Orleans. He may be for us,” I hazarded. They did not answer, but we craned our necks and strained our eyes, whilst the spot flew faster and faster, and grew bigger and bigger, until at last we all saw clearly that it was a man on horseback, and that he was heading straight for Châtillon, for he passed the cross-road to Tours. The Princess and her ladies, observing the dwarf’s gestures and our movements, came out to join us, and we all watched in an excited but silent group. It was not a wonderful thing, this sight of a man riding at full speed; but somehow we all felt, though we did not say so, that he was riding for us. She, the Princess of Condé, stood with her hands on the brass gun, leaning slightly forward, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes straining. It was as if she was striving to read on the rider’s face the message he bore. On a sudden Mademoiselle de Mailly, who was next to her, called out: “See! He wears a white scarf! Look, madame! Look!” True enough. Across his left shoulder, and streaming a yard behind him, was a white scarf, the emblem of our party. “He is for us,” the girl called out shrilly; “he must be from Orleans, madame. Ah, madame!” and she turned half round with clasped hands; but the Princess made no answer, staring straight at the coming man with hot eyes, eyes that burned with eagerness, eyes that blazed with a hundred questions at once. “The fool!” muttered Lanoy. “The idiot! To wear that scarf now! If any of Montluc’s troopers are skulking in that wood he is lost.” Jean de Marcilly touched me softly on the shoulder, and our glances met. I knew what he meant, and answered with the positive assurance of youth. “It is needless. He is perfectly safe, and we will have only our labor for our pains. I rode through the wood but two hours ago. There was no one there, and Coqueville tells me Montluc’s bees are hiving elsewhere to-day.”