The Helmet of Navarre

"And my little heart was bursting with love and admiration of you," she returned. "When I first could lisp, I learned to pray for my cousin Henri and my cousin Charles. I have n...

"I am no liar," I cried hotly. "Ask Jacques whether he did not tell me about the Béthunes. It is his lie, not mine. I did not know the Comte de Mar was dead, and this Lucas of y...

I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it. But as I gathered myself for the rush he spoke to...

I was afraid he would drop the flambeau and run, but he did not; he only sank back against the wall, eyeing my sword with exceeding deference. He knew not that there was but a f...

He held up to my inspection a silver rosary from which depended a crucifix of ivory, the sad image of the dying Christ carved upon it. Even in Monsieur's chapel, even in the chu...

"Afterward!" he retorted in a high key. "By our Lady, he shall pay me afterward! The gutters will run gold then, will they? Pardieu! I will see that a good stream flows my way....

"It seems I have exceeded my duty, monsieur, in coming here. Yet it turns out for the best, since Lucas is caught and M. de Grammont dead and you cleared of suspicion."

He passed me in his dreary walk. Half a dozen times he passed by me, a broken-hearted man, striving to collect his courage to take up his life once more. But I thought he would...

We both ran for him. Even as he pulled the rope, M. Étienne struck the box over his sword, snapping it. I dropped my stool, as he his box, and we pinned Lucas in our arms.

"Félix Broux," he said to me, "you have been following a bad plan. No man can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You are either my loyal servant or my enemy, one thing...

"Then I will see Vigo." Vigo was Monsieur's Master of Horse, the staunchest man in France. This sentry was nobody, just a common fellow picked up since Monsieur left St. Quentin...

"Yes, Sire. I came here, Sire, to tell M. de St. Quentin concerning his son. And though I am talking of myself, it is all the same story. Three years ago, after the king died, M...

At the word the soldier who had attended to Maître Menard came over to me and taught me how it feels to be hanged. I said to myself that if I had talked like a dastard I was not...

They were on him, wrenching the knife from his hand, wrenching his lame arm at the same time so painfully that he gasped. I was scared chill; I knew if they mishandled him they...

Mayenne looked up at him as unmoved as if it were not in the power of mortal man to make him lose his temper. In stirring him to draw dagger, Lucas had achieved an extraordinary...

"I must e'en give him the chance. If he do repent them, it were churlish to deny him the opportunity to tell me so. If he still maintain them, it were cowardly to shrink from he...

"I shall not torture you. I never meant to torture Mar. The arrest was not my work. Since it was done, I meant to profit by it to keep him awhile out of my way--only that. I thr...

I went to find Maître Menard, to urge upon him that some one should stay with M. Étienne while I was gone, lest he swooned or became light-headed. But the surgeon himself was pr...

"Then must we lay hands on the papers before they reach Mayenne, and all is saved," M. Étienne declared cheerfully. "These fellows can't read a cipher. If the packet be not open...

"Only if you come with me. Lorance, it is such a little way! Only to meet me in the next square. We will slip out of the gates together--leave Paris and all its plots and murder...

I darted back into the doorway beside him. His two assailants finding that they gained nothing by their joint attack, but rather hampered each other, one dropped back to watch h...

"You have boasted," M. Étienne went on, "that your side was up and mine down. Did you not reflect that soon my side may be up and yours down, you would hardly be at such pains t...

Our quarter was very quiet; we scarce met a soul. But afterward, as we reached the neighbourhood of the markets, the streets grew livelier. Now were we gladder than ever of Vigo...

CHAPTER PAGE I A FLASH OF LIGHTNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 II AT THE AMOUR DE DIEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 III M. LE DUC IS WELL GUARDED. . . ....

Now, I had been on the watch from the first instant for foul play. I had suspected something wrong with the sword, but my lord, who knew, had accepted it. Then, when Lucas propo...