He went back now to where Humphrey lay, and, lifting him up, gradually got him hoisted on his shoulders, for, though neither big and burly as Fleur de Mai nor sinewy and bull-shaped as La Truaumont, he was wiry and strong. Then, going to the stable door again, he pushed it open with his foot, his hands being engaged in holding his burden on his back, and went out into the pitiless rain and so across the _place_ to the high, built-up bank of the river. "'Twill carry him on swiftly," he whispered to himself, "through ravines and past sunny meads until, at last, it throws him ashore leagues and leagues from here: 'tis better thus than lying in some town fosse or common graveyard. _Allez, pauvre homme_." As he spoke he turned his back to the river, leaning downwards against the wooden rails erected to prevent the townspeople or children from falling into it, after which he let go of Humphrey's arms, which he had drawn over his shoulders, gave a strong, swift throw backwards of his body against the rails, and knew that his burden was gone. Gone with one heavy splash into the rushing, tumbling waters beneath; carried away as a cork thrown into those waters would itself have been carried away. Nor, when he turned round swiftly an instant afterwards, was there any sign of Humphrey. He could not see a human mass rolling over and over in those turbulent, leaping waters, nor a white face gleaming from them, nor any glassy, lifeless eyes glaring up into the leaden skies above. The body was gone and had left no sign behind. Boisfleury went back now to the stable, and, taking the lantern from the hook on which it hung, placed it on the floor and carefully picked up all the straw tinged or soaked with blood that he could find. Next, he picked up Humphrey's rapier--the cloak, he knew well enough, was on the victim's back excepting that part of it which he had wound tightly round his arm ere he attacked Fleur de Mai. Finally--after having carefully arranged some clean straw in the vacant stall with his hands--while all the time watched by the gleaming, startled eyes of the horses gazing at him over the divisions of the other stalls--he blew out the lamp and, shutting the door behind him, went over to the river again. "There is no score to pay now," he murmured, as he flung the tinged straw and the rapier into the Rhine. "None, here, in Basle. None by Boisfleury. But elsewhere? And by others! Ah!" CHAPTER XVII "The Splendid One"--"_Le Dieudonné_"--otherwise Louis XIV., King of France and Navarre, sat in the _Galerie des Cerfs_ at Fontainebleau before a blazing log fire, his feet and legs encased in long, heavy riding boots, half a dozen dogs round him, and, on his lap, a little spaniel of the breed afterwards known in England as that of King Charles, with whose long silky ears he toyed.