"Nay, Felix," he said. "I hope it will not be I who compose your
epitaph. Come, we must get to the house and send after poor Huguet."
"Felix and I will carry him," M. Etienne said, and we lifted him between
us--no easy task, for he was a heavy fellow. But it was little enough to
do for him.
We bore him along slowly, Monsieur striding ahead. But of a sudden he
turned back to us, laying quick fingers on the poor torn breast.
"What is it, Monsieur?" cried his son.
"My papers."
We set him down, and the three of us examined him from top to toe,
stripping off his steel coat, pulling apart his blood-clotted linen,
prying into his very boots. But no papers revealed themselves.
"What were they, Monsieur?"
A drawn look had come over Monsieur's face.
"Papers which the king gave me, and which I, fool and traitor, have
lost."
I ran back to the spot where we had found Huguet; there was his hat on
the ground, but no papers. I followed up the red trail to its beginning,
looking behind every stone, every bunch of grass; but no papers. In my
desperation I even pulled about the dead man, lest the packet had been
covered, falling from Huguet in the fray. The two gentlemen joined me
in the search, and we went over every inch of the ground, but to no
purpose.
"I thought them safer with Huguet than with me," Monsieur groaned.
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