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s head over a bank of gravel and reported several men in possession of the boat which Jean-Marie had so carefully anchored in the little Fanal Bay just round the point out of sight of the Castle. Worst of all, one of the captors was Don Raphael Llorient himself.
Almost at the same moment, the last individual rear-guard of the little party, a slim young lad called in this chronicle the Abb? John, discovered that they were being tracked from behind. They had indeed walked into the sack without a hole at the other end. They stood between two fires. For they had on their hands good old Madame Am?lie, ready at the first discouragement to sink down on the sand, and give up all for lost.
He dared not therefore speak openly. Cautiously the Abb? John called the miller to his side, and imparted his discovery.
"A quarter of an hour at the most, and they will have us!" he whispered.
"Umm!" said the Miller-Alcalde. "I suppose we could not--eh--you and I? What think you? I can strike a good buffet and you with your point! Are you ready?"
"Ready enough," said the Abb? John, "but they would call out at the first sight of us--indeed, either crack of pistol or clash of sword would bring up Don Raphael and his folk. We must think of something else. For men it might do, but there is your mother to consider--and Claire!"
"I wish it had been the bare steel--or else the cudgel," said the miller; "I am no hand at running and plotting!"
But the Abb? John was.
"Here," he said abruptly, stripping the silk-lined cloak from his shoulders, "take that. Get me Claire's lace mantilla and her wrapper with the capuchin hood. I have made a good enough maid before at the revels of carnival. They always chose me to act Joan of Domremy at the Sorbonne on Orleans Day. It is Claire they are after. Moreover, they are in a hurry. Be quick--bid her give them to you. But tell her nothing!"
And so the blunt Alcalde-Miller went up to Claire, who was busily supplying consolation to Madame Am?lie.
"Your lace mantilla," he said, "your cloak and hood! Quick--we have need of them!" he said abruptly. "Take this."
Now Claire had served too long an apprenticeship to dangers and strange unexplained demands during her father's wanderings to show any surprise. She put them on the miller's arm without a single question. It was only when he added, "Now--put this on," and threw the silken court-cloak belonging to the Abb? John over her shoulders, that she stammered something.
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