private signal to the Provost-Marshal, to enjoin a suspension of all proceedings
against the person of the Astrologer.
    Thus did the possession of some secret information, joined to audacious
courage and readiness of wit, save Galeotti from the most imminent danger; and
thus was Louis, the most sagacious as well as the most vindictive, amongst the
monarchs of the period, cheated of his revenge by the influence of superstition
upon a selfish temper, and a mind to which, from the consciousness of many
crimes, the fear of death was peculiarly terrible.
    He felt, however, considerable mortification at being obliged to relinquish
his purposed vengeance; and the disappointment seemed to be shared by his
satellites, to whom the execution was to have been committed. Le Balafré alone,
perfectly indifferent on the subject, so soon as the countermanding signal was
given, left the door at which he had posted himself, and in a few minutes was
fast asleep.
    The Provost-Marshal, as the group reclined themselves to repose in the hall
after the King retired to his bedchamber, continued to eye the goodly form of
the Astrologer, with the look of a mastiff watching a joint of meat which the
cook had retrieved from his jaws, while his attendants communicated to each
other in brief sentences their characteristic sentiments.
    »The poor blinded necromancer,« whispered Trois-Eschelles, with an air of
spiritual unction and commiseration, to his comrade, Petit-André, »hath lost the
fairest chance of expiating some of his vile sorceries, by dying through means
of the cord of the blessed Saint Francis! and I had purpose, indeed, to leave
the comfortable noose around his neck, to scare the foul fiend from his unhappy
carcass.«
    »And I,« said Petit-André, »have missed the rarest opportunity of knowing
how far a weight of seventeen stone will stretch a three-plied cord! - It would
have been a glorious experiment in our line, - and the jolly old boy would have
died so easily!«
    While this whispered dialogue was going forward, Martius, who had taken the
opposite side of the huge stone fireplace, round which the whole group was
assembled, regarded them askance, and with a look of suspicion. He first put his
hand into his vest, and satisfied himself that the handle of a very sharp
double-edged poniard, which he always carried about him, was disposed
conveniently for his grasp; for, as we have already noticed, he was, though now
somewhat unwieldy, a powerful, athletic man, and prompt and active at the use of
his weapon.