Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/293

Rh Is that which the King did in Paris—to the utter extermination of the unbelieving and the purging of that Sacred City—against his will here? Nay, his will is to do—to do as they have done in Paris and in Tours and in Saumur! But his Minister is unfaithful! The woman whom he has taken to his bosom has bewildered him with her charms and her sorceries, and put it in his mind to deny the mission he bears.”

“You are sure, beyond chance of error, that he bears letters to that effect, good Father?” the printer ventured.

“Ask my lord’s Vicar! He knows the letters and the import of them!”

“They are to that effect,” the Archdeacon answered, drumming on the table with his fingers and speaking somewhat sullenly. “I was in the Chancellery, and I saw them. They are duplicates of those sent to Bordeaux.”

“Then the preparations he has made must be against the Huguenots,” Lescot, the ex-Provost, said with a sigh of relief. And Thuriot’s face lightened also. “He must intend to hang one or two of the ringleaders, before he deals with the herd.”

“Think it not!” Father Pezelay cried in his high shrill voice. “I tell you the woman has bewitched him, and he will deny his letters!”

For a moment there was silence. Then, “But dare he do that, reverend Father?” Lescot asked slowly and incredulously. “What? Suppress the King’s letters?”

“There is nothing he will not dare! There is nothing he has not dared!” the priest answered vehemently, the recollection of the scene in the great guard-room of the Louvre, when Tavannes had so skilfully turned the tables on him, instilling venom into his tone. “She who lives with him is the devil’s. She has bewitched him with her spells and her Sabbaths! She bears the mark of the Beast on her bosom, and for her the fire is even now kindling!”