A stanza, and the melody died away on the wings of the tempest. His heart was beating violently; he looked expectantly toward her. Even more gently, like a lullaby to the turbulent night, the full-measured cadence of the majestic psalm was again heard. Then another voice, deeper, fuller, blended with that of the first singer. Unwavering, she continued the song, as though it had been the most natural matter he should join his voice with hers. Fainter fell the harmony; then ceased altogether--a hymn destined to become interwoven with terrible memories, the tragic massacre of the Huguenots on the ill-fated night of St. Bartholomew. Again prevailed the tristful dirge of the pines.
"You sing well, mistress," said the jester, softly. "Is it true you are one of a hated sect?"
"As true as that you did not deny the heretic volume found in your room," she replied.
A silence ensued between them. "It was Marot placed the horses there for us," she said, at length. "He, too, is a heretic, and would have saved you."
Thereafter the silence remained unbroken for some moments, and then--
Soon her deep breathing told him she was sleeping, and, as he listened, in fancy he could hear the faint echoes of her voice, accompanied by the sighing wind. How intrepid had she seemed; how helpless was she now; and, as he bent over her, divining yet not seeing, he asked himself whence had come this faith in him, that like a child she slumbered amid the unrest of nature? What had her life been, who her friends, that she should thus have chosen a jester as comrade? What had driven her forth from the court to nameless hazards? Had he surmised correctly? Was it--
"The king," she murmured, with sudden restlessness in her sleep.
In the jester's breast upleaped a fierce anger. This was the art-loving monarch who burned the fathers and brothers of the new faith; this, the righteous ruler who condemned men to death for psalm-singing or for listening to grave discourse; this the Christian king, the brilliant patron of science and learning.
The storm had sighed itself to rest, the stars had come out, but leaning with his back against a tree, the fool still kept vigil.
Experiencing no further inconvenience than the ordinary vicissitudes of traveling without litter or cavalcade, several days of wandering slowly passed. Few people they met, and those, for the most part, various types of vagabonds and nomads; some wild and savage, roaming like beasts from place to place; others, harmless, mere bedraggled birds of passage. In this latter class were the vagrant-entertainers, with dancing rooster or singing dog, who stopped at every peasant's door. To the shrill piping of the flageolet, these merry stragglers added a step of their own, and won a crust for themselves, a bone for the dog or a handful of grain for the performing fowl.