"My words, Gabriel, were not mere empty sounds. You are and shall still be quite free. Go on alone in your own path if you please; act independently of us or not at all. We shall never call you to account. We know," he added, with a significant expression, "that it is sometimes your way to prefer to dispense with associates or advisers." "What do you mean?" asked Gabriel, in surprise. "I know what I mean," replied the admiral. "For the present you ask that you may take no part in our conspiracies against the royal authority. So be it! Our duty will be done when we have given you notice of our movements and purposes. Then you may follow us or stand apart; that is your affair, and yours only. You will always know, either by letter or messenger, when and where we have need of you, and then you will act as seems good to you. If you come to us, you will always be welcome; if you stay away, no one will have any fault to find. Such is the agreement to which the leaders of the party have come concerning you, even before you had told me where you stood. You can accept such conditions, I should think." "Indeed, I do accept them; and I thank you heartily," said Gabriel. During the night which followed that eventful day, Gabriel, kneeling before his father's tomb in the mortuary vault of the counts of Montgommery, communed with his dead in these words:-- "Yes, my Father, I did indeed take oath not only to punish your murderer in his own lifetime, but also to visit his sins upon his children after him. There is no doubt of it, O my Father, no doubt! But I did not anticipate what has happened. Are there not obligations even more sacred than the fulfilment of an oath? What duty can compel one to strike down an enemy who puts the sword in one's hand, and presents his bare breast to receive the blow? If you were living, my Father, I am sure you would advise me to postpone my wrath, and not to meet confidence with treachery. Forgive me, then, from the grave, for doing what if you were living you would require me to do. Moreover, something seems to tell me that my vengeance is merely suspended, and that but for a short time. You know on high what we can only feel a presentiment of here below. But the pallor of this sickly king, and the frightful glance with which his mother threatened him, and the predictions (which have thus far proved accurate, and which decree that my own life must fall a prey to that woman's rancorous hatred), and the conspiracies already set on foot against the reign which began only yesterday,--all combine to lead me to think it probable that the boy of sixteen will occupy the throne for a much less time even than the man of forty, and that I shall very soon be able to resume my task and my oath of expiation, my Father, under the reign of another of the sons of Henri II." CHAPTER XVII REPORTS AND DENUNCIATIONS