The
Chevalier came next, and after him Montr?sor and Mathurin.
Awhile we waited until the troopers brought their boat to land, then when
they had got the snorting animals safely ashore, I bade them look to the
prisoner, and requested Montr?sor and Mathurin to step aside with me, as I
had something to communicate to them.
Walking between the pair, I drew them some twenty paces away from the group
by the water, towards a certain thicket in which I had bidden Michelot
await me.
"It has occurred to me, Messieurs," I began, speaking slowly and
deliberately as we paced along,--"it has occurred to me that despite all
the precautions taken to carry out my Lord Cardinal's wishes--a work at
least in which you, yourselves, have evinced a degree of zeal that I cannot
too highly commend to his Eminence--the possibility yet remains of some
mistake of trivial appearance, of some slight flaw that might yet cause the
miscarriage of those wishes."
They turned towards me, and although I could not make out the expressions
of their faces, in the gloom, yet I doubted not but that they were puzzled
ones at that lengthy and apparently meaningless harangue.
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