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, Lieutenant-Governor of Saumur almost rose from his seat in his astonishment.

“What! No letters?” he cried, a hand on either arm of the chair.

The Magistrates stared, one and all. “No letters?” they muttered.

And “No letters?” the Provost chimed in more faintly.

Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council table. He alone was unmoved.

“No,” he said. “I bear none.”

M. de Montsoreau, who, travel-stained and in his corselet, had the second place of honour at the foot of the table, frowned.

“But, M. le Comte,” he said, “my instructions from Monsieur were to proceed to carry out his Majesty’s will in co-operation with you, who, I understood, would bring letters de par le Roi.”

“I had letters,” Count Hannibal answered negligently. “But on the way I mislaid them.”

“Mislaid them?” Montsoreau cried, unable to believe his ears; while the smaller dignitaries of the city, the magistrates and churchmen who sat on either side of the