Their dark figures were irrecognizable in
the dim moonlight. They rode fast and silent, like men having
important business before them, which demanded haste; business which
both fully understood and cared not now to talk about.
And so it was. Bigot and Cadet, after the exchange of a few words
about the hour of midnight, suddenly left the wine, the dice, and
the gay company at the Palace, and mounting their horses, rode,
unattended by groom or valet, in the direction of Beaumanoir.
Bigot, under the mask of gaiety and indifference, had felt no little
alarm at the tenor of the royal despatch, and at the letter of the
Marquise de Pompadour concerning Caroline de St. Castin.
The proximate arrival of Caroline's father in the Colony was a
circumstance ominous of trouble. The Baron was no trifler, and
would as soon choke a prince as a beggar, to revenge an insult to
his personal honor or the honor of his house.
Bigot cared little for that, however. The Intendant was no coward,
and could brazen a thing out with any man alive. But there was one
thing which he knew he could not brazen out or fight out, or do
anything but miserably fail in, should it come to the question.
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