in getting as many daggers as he wishes from the scum of the
faubourgs. It would be difficult in the extreme to prove that he
had aught to do with it, for you may be sure that he would really
go down into the country with all speed the moment the deed was
done.

"In future, master, you must not go out without having me close
behind you; as for the others, I would put them in ordinary citizen
garb, and let them follow some twenty yards behind, so as to be in
readiness to run up at once. They could carry swords openly, and
have their pistols hidden under their doublets."

"It might be as well, at any rate for the present. If, as you think,
Beaufort is hidden in Paris, it is certain he will lose no time."

Paolo nodded. "I will get the men disguises at once. They had better
be different; Macpherson can be dressed as a soldier, Nicholl as
a burgher, and Sandy Grahame and Hunter as rough mechanics. They,
of course, could not carry swords, but might take heavy cudgels.
They would not walk together, or seem to have any knowledge of
each other. Sandy might be ten paces behind you, Nicholl twenty,
and the others thirty, or where the street is wide they could keep
abreast of you on the other side. Are you going to the Louvre this
evening?"

"Yes, the cardinal said that the queen wished that I should appear
there. I would much rather have stayed away, as doubtless the affair
behind the Luxembourg will be generally known by this evening, and
I shall feel my position a very unpleasant one, though I imagine
that the queen intends, by her countenance of me, to show that I