Gervais was still doubtful.

"It is a risk. If he betrays—"

"What is life without risks?" cried Yeux-gris. "I thought you too good a gambler, Gervais, to falter before a risk."

"Well," Gervais consented, "I leave it to you. Do as you like."

Yeux-gris said at once to me:

"This Lucas, as I told you, is too cowardly to meet my cousin in open fight. Since he got the challenge he has never stuck his nose out of doors without two or three of the duke's guard about him. Therefore we have the right to get at him as we can. We have paid a man in the house to tell of his movements. He is to fare out secretly at night on a mission for M. le Duc, with one comrade only. M. Gervais and I will interrupt that little journey."

"Very good, monsieur. And I?"

"You will meet our spy and learn the hour of the expedition. Last night, when he told us of the plan, it had not been decided."

"Then he will be the other man I saw in the window? I shall know him."

"You have sharp eyes and a sharp brain, youngster. But he will not know you. Therefore you can say you come from the shuttered house in the Rue Coupejarrets. You will meet him in the little alley to the north of the Hôtel St. Quentin. Do you know your way to the hôtel? Well, then, you are to go down the passageway between the house and M. de Portreuse's garden—you cannot mistake it, for on two sides of the house is the street, on the third the garden, and on the fourth the alleyway. Half-way down the alley is an arch with a small door. In that arch our man, Louis Martin, will meet you. Do you understand?"

I repeated the directions.

"You have learned your lesson. You will ask him the hour—only that."

"And you will take oath not to betray us," commanded Gervais.

I took out the cross that hung on my rosary. I was ready to swear. Gervais prompted:

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