"This is most marvellous, Martin!" cried Gabriel,--"such wonders accomplished in so short a time! Why, I shall have as much confidence henceforth in your intelligence as in your loyalty!" "Oh, Monseigneur, if you will rely on my zeal and my discretion, I ask for nothing more!" The crafty fellow's plot was so well contrived, and so favored by luck and his audacity, that since Gabriel's arrival the impostor had spoken nothing but the truth. While Gabriel and Vaulpergues were deliberating aside as to what road they should take, he, for his part, was completing the details of his plan, so as not to interfere with the miraculous chances which had served him so well thus far. This is what actually occurred. Arnauld, having escaped with Gudule's assistance from the camp where he was held a prisoner, had prowled about in the neighboring woods for eighteen hours, not daring to leave their shelter for fear of falling into the hands of the enemy. Toward evening he thought that he saw in the forest of Angimont the tracks of horsemen who must, he judged, be anxious to keep out of sight, or they would not have resorted to such impracticable paths. Therefore they must be Frenchmen lying in ambush, so Arnauld tried to overtake them, and succeeded. It was then that he dismissed Gudule with all possible speed; and the poor child returned, weeping, to the tents, expecting, no doubt, to find another lover there to take the place of the one she had lost. The first one of Vaulpergues's soldiers whom Arnauld fell in with called him Martin-Guerre; and for very good reasons he did not undeceive him. Listening with all his ears, and saying very little himself, he soon learned everything. Vicomte d'Exmès was expected to return that very night, after having notified the admiral at St. Quentin of Vaulpergues's approach, and bringing with him the necessary plans and instructions to facilitate throwing the detachment into the place. Martin-Guerre was with him, they said; so they naturally took Arnauld to be Martin, and questioned him about his master. "He will soon be here," was his reply. "We came by different roads." In his own mind he was considering what a fine thing it would be for him if he could attach himself to Gabriel. In the first place, his means of subsistence in these hard times would be assured; then he knew that his master, the constable, at present Philibert Emmanuel's prisoner, was suffering less, possibly, from the disgrace of his defeat and captivity than from the thought that his detested rival, the Duc de Guise, would soon be omnipotent at court, and would exercise unbounded influence over the king's mind. To dog the steps of a friend of Guise, then, would be to establish himself at the very fountain-head of information, which he could sell at a high price to the constable. Last of all, was not Gabriel personally an enemy of the Montmorencys, and the principal obstacle in the way of the marriage of Duc François with Madame de Castro?