There was a heavy stillness in the room when Lagardere came to the end of his tale. "This sounds serious," Cocardasse said, gloomily, and those about him were gloomily silent.

Lagardere resumed his story: "I pondered that thrust for a month. At last I mastered it. I tried it on the Baron de Brissac with perfect success."

A general laugh at this remark relieved the tension of the bravos’ nerves. Æsop took advantage of the more cheerful atmosphere again to address Lagardere. "Matchless cavalier," he asked, with a wry assumption of politeness, "would you show me that thrust you esteem so highly?"

Lagardere looked at the speaker with a whimsical smile. "With pleasure," he said, and drew his sword. Æsop did likewise, and while the bravos drew back towards the wall to allow a free space for the lesson the two swordsmen came on guard. Lagardere explained while he fenced, naming each feint and lunge and circle of the complicated attack as he made it. With the last word of his steel-illuminated lecture his sword, that had illustrated the words of the fencer, seemed suddenly to leap forward, a glittering streak of light.

Æsop leaped back with a yell, and clapped his left hand to his forehead. "Damnation!" he cried.

Cocardasse, who had been following the proceedings with the keenest attention, hurried out of the circle of spectators. "Splendid!" he cried. "What is the parry?"

"It is as clear as day," Lagardere answered. "This is how the trick is done," and again, as he spoke, his blade explained his text, gleaming and twisting in the cunning evolutions of the riposte.

Cocardasse, who had drawn his own sword, repeated Lagardere’s words and parodied Lagardere’s gestures faithfully. "I see," he said, and turned to the others, who had lost nothing of the lesson. "Have you caught it, boys? It might serve—"

Lagardere interrupted him, indifferent to the evil appreciation on the faces of the spectators. "It will serve at once. I am going to try it on its master."

"On Nevers?" queried Staupitz, hoarsely.

Lagardere nodded. "On no less a man. I should have told you that I plagued him until he promised me my revenge. When I was exiled I wrote to remind him." Lagardere drew a letter from his breast and held it up for a moment before returning it to its lodging. "In this letter he accepts my challenge, names the time, the place—"

Cocardasse interrupted: "What time?"

"To-night at ten," Lagardere replied.

"The place?" asked Passepoil.

"The moat of Caylus," Lagardere answered. He pointed to the window at which Æsop had been sitting so long. "You can see it from that window."

There was a general look of astonishment on the faces of all the bravos. Passepoil, quick with his Norman caution, glanced at Staupitz and the group about him, and put his finger cautiously to his lips.

Cocardasse was still inquisitive. "Why there?" he questioned.

Lagardere explained, amiably: "Because such is the good duke’s pleasure. When I sent him my cartel I made it plain that I had little time on my hands, as I was anxious, on account of the king’s fire-new zeal against duelling, to cross the frontier as speedily as might be. I knew the duke was staying on his estates near by, and I suggested, with a fine show of gravity, that possibly his highness was acquainted with some quiet place in the neighborhood of the Castle of Caylus where we might settle our little difference. Oh, the words were solemnly couched, but I swear to you that I laughed heartily when I wrote them."

Lagardere laughed again in memory of that former mirth as he made an end of speaking. Cocardasse scratched an ear and glanced at Passepoil. Passepoil scratched an ear and glanced at Cocardasse. The rest of the bravos stared with a sullen curiosity at Lagardere, who paid no heed to their gaze.

"Why did you laugh?" Cocardasse asked, after a short pause.

Lagardere answered him affably: "Because I knew that my allusion to Caylus would fret my excellent enemy. There is, it seems, a beauty hidden in that gloomy castle, Gabrielle de Caylus, whom my duke adores in spite of the ancient feud between the two houses of Caylus and Nevers. It should please him to fight under the eyes of his lady love, whom I can console if I win."

The idea seemed to please Lagardere, for he again began to laugh softly to himself after he had finished speaking. But Cocardasse did not seem to think it was a laughing matter, for his voice was almost solemn as he asked: "Did you speak of the lady in your letter to Nevers?"

Lagardere interrupted his mirth to reply: "Of course. The situation is so humorous. I suggested playfully that there was a lovely princess imprisoned in the castle of a wicked old ogre named Caylus, and I hinted that if things turned out as I hoped, I might be fortunate enough to carry solace and freedom to the captive damsel." He paused for a moment and then asked in wonder: "Why do you pull such long faces?"

For, indeed, the faces of the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to help you," he said, knowingly.

Lagardere’s laughter became more pronounced. "To help me?" he cried, and he shook with amusement at the absurdity of the words.

Passepoil insisted: "It’s no laughing matter. Nevers is the lady’s husband."

He spoke with a portentous solemnity against which Lagardere protested, laughing louder than before. "On the contrary, it is more laughable than ever. A secret marriage. A romance. Perhaps I shall have to soothe a widow when I hoped to woo a maid."

"Better have a sword or two to back you," Cocardasse suggested, cunningly.

Lagardere frowned. "No, thank you. I do my own fighting."

Passepoil whispered, insinuatingly: "Could I help to carry off the lady?"

Lagardere’s frown deepened. "No, thank you. I do my own love-making. Clear out and leave me alone. That is all I want of you, my friends."

Cocardasse sighed. "I’d do anything in the world to oblige you, but—" He paused and looked helplessly at his former pupil, whom his faltering speech, his hesitating manner began to anger.

"But what?" said Lagardere, sharply.

Cocardasse made an apologetic gesture. "Every man to his trade. We also are waiting for some one."

Lagardere raised his eyebrows. "Indeed, and that some one?"

The bravos looked at one another uneasily, trying to seem devil-may-care and failing wofully. Nobody appeared to want to speak. At last Passepoil spoke. "That some one is Louis de Nevers," he said, and wished heartily that he did not have to say it.

Lagardere at first appeared to be puzzled by the answer. Then the full meaning of it seemed to fall upon him like a blow, and his face blazed at the insult. "Nevers! You! Ah, this is an ambuscade, and I have sat at drink with assassins!"

Cocardasse protested: "Come, captain, come."

Lagardere’s only answer was to spring back clear of the nearest swordsmen and to draw his sword again. The bravos gathered together angrily about Staupitz, buzzing like irritated bees.

Lagardere flung his comely head back, and his bright eyes flamed with a royal rage. His words came quick and clear in his anger: "It was for this you sought to learn Nevers’s thrust, and I—Oh, it would make the gods laugh to think that I taught it to you! You have the best of the joke so far, excellent assassins, but if any one of you touches a hair of Nevers’s head he will find that the joke is two-edged, like my sword. If Nevers must die, it shall be in honorable battle and by my hands, but not by yours, while Lagardere lives."

Æsop commented, sneeringly: "Lagardere is not immortal."

Staupitz grunted, angrily: "Shall one man dictate to nine?" and made an appealing gesture to his comrades, inciting them against their censor.

Lagardere faced their menaces with the contemptuous indifference with which a mastiff might have faced as many rats. He commanded, imperiously: "Pack off, the whole gang of you, and leave Nevers to me!"

The bravos still buzzed and grumbled: Cocardasse rubbed his chin thoughtfully; Passepoil pinched his long nose. The situation was becoming critical. Lagardere was Lagardere, but he was only one man, after all, in a narrow room, against great odds. Truly, the odds would be diminished if the quarrel came to actual blows, for Cocardasse was resolved, and he knew that Passepoil was resolved also, to side with Lagardere in such an emergency. But even with the situation thus altered the result could only be unnecessary bloodshed, which would be bad, for, if Lagardere was their dear Little Parisian, the others were also their comrades. Further, it would mean the postponing, probably the abandonment, of their enterprise against Nevers, which would be much worse. Cocardasse plucked the Norman to him with a strong finger and thumb, and whispered in his ear: "Get the boys away and shift the keys."

Passepoil nodded, and glided discreetly among the bravos huddled together at the table, whispering the words of Cocardasse in the ears of each.

Lagardere frowned at this mystery. "What are you whispering?" he asked, angrily.

Cocardasse explained, plausibly. "Only that if you wanted to keep Nevers to yourself—"

Passepoil interrupted, concluding: "It mattered little who did the job."

By this time the bravos, who at the beginning of the quarrel had unhooked their rapiers from the wall, were now pulling their cloaks about them and making for the main door. The Italian, the Breton, the Spaniard, the Biscayan, and the Portuguese filed out into the passage, followed by Æsop, who turned to pay Lagardere a mocking salutation and to say, tauntingly: "So good-night, gallant captain."

Staupitz, with an air of surly carelessness, sauntered down to the only other door in the room, the door that led to the domestic offices of the Inn. While he did so, Cocardasse held out his hand to Lagardere in sign of amity, but Lagardere refused it. "I am no precisian," he said. "I have kept vile company. I would not deny my hand to a hang-man. But the most tolerant philosopher has his dislikes, and mine are assassins."

Cocardasse sighed, and made for the main door, followed by Passepoil, who said, wistfully, "Adieu, Little Parisian," a greeting of which Lagardere took no notice.

Now, while Æsop had been saying his taunting farewell to Lagardere he had been standing with his back to the door, and with his left hand had dexterously abstracted the key. Also, while Cocardasse had been endeavoring to gain a clasp of the hand from Lagardere, Staupitz had quietly locked the door leading to the kitchen and put that key in his pocket. Now Staupitz, Cocardasse, and Passepoil went in their turn through the main door and drew it behind them.

Lagardere seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief as he heard the heavy feet trampling down the passage, but his relief did not last long. His quick ears caught a sound that was undoubtedly the click of a key in a lock, followed by the shuffle of cautiously retiring feet. He instantly sprang to his feet, and, rushing to the main door, caught at the handle and found the door firmly locked.

"Damn them!" he cried; "they have locked the door." Then he began to shout, furiously, calling first upon Cocardasse, and then upon Passepoil by name to open the door immediately, knowing these two to be his friends among the gang of rascals. But no answer came to his cries, and, vigorous though he was, his efforts had no effect upon the solid strength of the door. Turning, he hurried to the door which led to the kitchen and tried that, only to find that it, too, was locked against him, and that it, too, was impregnable. He looked about him hurriedly. He knew it was no use calling for the people of the Inn, who would be sure to side with their truculent customers, and he knew also that, if he did not succeed in making his escape from the trap into which he had blundered, Nevers would be murdered.

He rushed to the window and looked out. The sight was not pleasing. The rugged rock on which the Inn was perched dropped beneath him thirty feet to the moat below, and, though his eyes eagerly scanned the face of the cliff, he could see no possibility, even for one so nimble as himself, of climbing down it successfully. To jump such a height would be to end as a jelly and be of no service to Nevers. For a few wild moments he cursed his folly in having been deluded by the bravos, and then his native high spirits and his native humor came to his assistance, reminding him that he always made it his business to look upon the diverting side of life, and that it was now clearly his duty to seek for the entertaining elements of the present predicament. Undoubtedly, these were hard to find. The jest was decidedly a bitter one, and could only be turned to his taste if he succeeded in getting out. But how was he to succeed? He tried the door again, despairingly and unsuccessfully as before. He reflected that perhaps there might be a rope in the room, and anxiously he looked in every corner. No rope was to be found.

Clapping his hands to his sides in his vexation at being thus baffled, he touched the soft substance of his silken sash, and instantly an idea kindled at the touch. "Perhaps this will do," he thought, and hurriedly proceeded to unwind it. It was a long sash, for it went from his shoulder to his waist and then three times round his middle, where it was tied in a large bow with long ends. It was at least fifteen feet long, and as tough as any hemp that was ever twisted. He fastened one end of it quickly round a bar in the window, and let the long crimson streamer drop down the side of the cliff. Using this as a means of descent, it would bring him half-way down the rock. Hanging by his arms, he would cover much of the remaining distance, and the drop thence to the ground would be easy. In another moment he was outside the window, and, grasping the silk firmly in his strong fingers, began his perilous descent.

The descent into the moat of Caylus was rather a ticklish business, even with the aid of an improvised rope, for the face of the cliff was, for the most part, smooth, and afforded little in the way of foothold, but Lagardere was a trained athlete and a man of great physical strength, one that could use his feet with skill for purchase against the face of the rock, and he made his way dexterously to the end of his tether. Even when he had got thus far, and was swinging by his hands from the end of his taut sash, he was a considerable distance from the ground. But Lagardere let go with as light a heart as if he were a new Curtius leaping into a new gulf; and, indeed, if he had been of a mind to make the parallel, he would have counted his stake as great as the safety of Rome. Dropping like a plummet, he alighted on his hands and knees on the ground. Quickly he picked himself up, dusted the earth from his palms, and, after carefully feeling himself all over to make sure that he was none the worse, save for the jar of his tumble, he looked about him cautiously. It was late evening now, and the hot day knew no cooler dusk.

As he looked up from the strange vault in which he stood, the vault that was formed by the moat of Caylus between the rock on which the castle rose and the rock on which the Inn of the Seven Devils was perched, he saw above him the late evening sky painted with the strangest pageant. To the right of the spot where the sun had declined the purple melancholy of the heavens was broken by a blaze of gold, such as might have flashed from the armor of some celestial host marshalled and marching against the Powers of Darkness. To the left, under lowered eyelids of sable clouds, there ran a band of red fire that seemed as if it must belt the earth with its fury, a red fire that might have flamed from the mouth of the very pit. Lagardere was not over-imaginative, but the strangeness of the contrast, the fierce splendor of the warring colors, touched the player’s heart beneath the soldier’s hide. "The gold of heaven," he murmured, and saluted the sky to the right. "The rod of hell," he thought, and pointed towards the left, where distant trees stared, black, angry outlines against those waves of livid fire. Was not this contest in the clouds a kind of allegory of the quarrel in which he was now engaged, and was not his cause very surely, in its righteousness, its justice, its honor, gilded and invigorated by those noble rays to strive against and overthrow the legionaries of evil?

Even as he thought such unfamiliar thoughts, the pageant of opposing forces dimmed and dwindled. The darkness was gathering swiftly, investing the world with its legion of gloom; and in the shadow of the great Castle of Caylus, rising like a rock itself out of the solid rock behind Lagardere, the moat was soon very dark indeed. There was little light in the moonless sky; there came none from the castle, which in its dim outline of towers and battlements might have been the enchanted palace of some fairy tale, so soundless, so lightless, so unpeopled did it seem. There was a faint gleam discernible in the windows of the Inn on the other side of the gorge from which he had just succeeded in escaping.

Lagardere looked up at the Inn and laughed; Lagardere looked up at the castle and smiled. What was she like, he wondered, that beautiful Gabrielle de Caylus, whom it had been his impudent ambition to woo, and whom he now knew to be married to Nevers, his appointed antagonist? He had come all that way with the pleasant intention of killing Nevers, but he felt more friendly towards his enemy since he had learned of the plot against his life, and he wondered who was the instigator of that plot, who was the paymaster of the, as he believed, baffled assassins. For in a sense he believed them to be baffled, and this for two reasons. The first was that he heard no sound of stealthy footsteps creeping across the bridge. The second was that when he glanced up at the Inn window he saw that the dim glow in the distant window was suddenly occulted, and then as suddenly became visible again. It was plain to Lagardere that some one had entered the room and had looked out of the window for an instant. Therefore some one had already discovered his absence, probably the maid of the Inn. No doubt she would send word to the bravos, and it might very well chance that the bravos would not think the odds in their favor sufficiently good when they knew that they had to deal with Henri de Lagardere as well as with Louis de Nevers.

Lagardere whistled cheerfully the lilt of a drinking-song as he reflected thus, for he considered himself quite equal to handling the whole batch of rascallions if only he had a wall of some kind to back him. He was fondling the possibility that they had given up the whole business in disgust at his interruption of their purpose, when it suddenly stabbed his fancy that they might ambush Nevers on his way. But he dismissed that fear instantly. He hoped and believed that if they knew he was free they would give him the first chance to kill Nevers for them. In any case, all that he could do was to wait patiently where he was and see what the creeping minutes brought.

The moat of Caylus did not appear to him to be, under the existing conditions, by any means the ideal field for a duel. In the darkness it seemed to him to be more happily adapted for a game of blindman’s-buff. There was a half-filled hay-cart in the moat, and bundles of hay were scattered hither and thither on the ground and littered the place confusingly. Lagardere began to busy himself in clearing some of this hay out of the way, so as to afford an untroubled space for the coming combat. While he was thus engaged he heard for the first time a faint sound come from the direction of the castle. It was the sound of a door being turned cautiously upon its hinges. Crouching in the shadow of the rock down which he had lately descended, Lagardere looked round and saw dimly two forms emerge like shadows from the very side of the castle. The new-comers had come forth from a little postern that gave onto the moat, to which they descended by some narrow steps cut in the rock, and they now walked a little way slowly into the darkness. Lagardere, all watchfulness, could hear one of the shadows say to the other, "This way, monseigneur," and the word "monseigneur" made him wonder. Was he going to be brought face to face with the Marquis of Caylus, the old ogre whose grim tyranny had been talked of even in Paris?

The shadow addressed as monseigneur answered, "I see no one," and the voices of both the shadows were unfamiliar to the listener. But the voice of the shadow that was saluted as monseigneur sounded like the voice of a young man.

The leading shadow seemed to be peering into the darkness in front of him. "I told them to place a sentinel," he said to his companion; and as he spoke he caught sight of Lagardere, who must have looked as shadowy to him as he looked to Lagardere, and he pointed as he added: "Yes, there is some one there, monseigneur."

"Who is it?" the second shadow questioned, and again the voice sounded youthful to Lagardere’s ears.

"It looks like Saldagno," said the first shadow; and, coming a little farther forward, he called dubiously into the gloom: "Is that you, Saldagno?"

Now, as Saldagno was the name of one of the swordsmen who had met at the Inn in menace of Nevers, Lagardere came to the swift conclusion that the two shadows now haunting him had something to do with that conspiracy, and that, if it were possible, it would be as well to learn their purposes. He was, therefore, quite prepared to be Saldagno for the occasion, and it was with a well-affected Lusitanian accent that he promptly answered, "Present," and came a little nearer to the strangers.

The first shadow spoke again, craning a long neck into the darkness. "It is I, Monsieur Peyrolles. Come here."

Lagardere advanced obediently, and the second shadow, coming to the side of his companion, questioned him. "Would you like to earn fifty pistoles?"

Although both the voices were strange to Lagardere, the voice of this second shadow seemed to denote a person of better breeding than his companion, a person accustomed to command when the other was accustomed to cajole. Also, it was decidedly the voice of a young man. Whoever the speaker might be, he certainly was not the crabbed old Marquis de Caylus. Lagardere endeavored eagerly but unsuccessfully to see the face of the speaker. Night had by this time fallen completely. The moat was as black as a wolf’s mouth, and the shadow that was muffled in a cloak held a corner of it so raised that it would have concealed his visage if the gorge had been flooded with moonlight.

"Who would not?" Lagardere answered, with a swagger which seemed to him appropriate to a light-hearted assassin.

The shadow gave him commands. "When ten o’clock strikes, tap at this window with your sword." He pointed as he spoke to the wall of the castle, and in that wall Lagardere, peering through the obscurity, could faintly discern a window about a man’s height from the moat. The speaker went on: "A woman will open. Whisper very low, ’I am here.’"

Involuntarily Lagardere echoed the last words, "I am here," and added, "The motto of Nevers."

There was annoyance in the well-bred voice as it questioned, sharply: "What do you know of Nevers?"

Peyrolles respectfully answered for the sham Saldagno: "Monseigneur, they all know whom they are to meet. How they know I cannot tell, but they do know. But they are to be trusted."

The shadow shrugged his shoulders and resumed his instructions: "The woman will hand you a child, a baby a few months old. Take it at once to the Inn." He paused for a moment and then said, slowly: "I trust you are not tender-hearted."

Lagardere protested with voice and gesture. "You pain me," he declared.

Apparently satisfied, the shadow went on: "If the girl should die in your arms, no one will blame you, and your fifty pistoles will be a hundred. ’Tis but a quick nip of finger and thumb on an infant’s neck. Do you understand?"

"What I do not understand," retorted Lagardere, "is why you do not do the job yourself and save your money."

It was now Peyrolles’s turn to be annoyed. "Rascal!" he exclaimed, angrily. But the man he called monseigneur restrained him.

"Calm, Peyrolles, calm! For the very good reason, inquisitive gentleman, that the lady in question would know my voice or the voice of my friend here, and as I do not wish her to think that I have anything to do with to-night’s work—"

Lagardere interrupted, bluffly: "Say no more. I’m your man."

Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in the distance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have been told to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causeway to the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest."

The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, the fool amorist. Come."

Then the two shadows flitted away in the darkness as nebulously as they had come, and the castle swallowed them up, and Lagardere was alone again in the moat among the bundles of hay.

"May the devil fly away with you for a pair of knaves!" he said beneath his breath, apostrophizing the vanished shadows. "But I’ll save the child and Nevers in spite of you." For in those moments of horrid colloquy all his purpose had been transmuted. These unknown plotters of murder had confirmed him in his alliance to the man he had come to slay. So long as Nevers was in peril from these strange enemies, so long Lagardere would be his friend, free, of course, to rekindle his promise later. But now even Nevers’s life was not of the first importance. There was a child threatened, a child to be saved. Who were these devils, these Herods, that sought to slay a baby?

Even as he asked himself this question he could hear through the clear air the striking of a clock in the distant village. He counted the strokes from one to ten. This was the time that had been fixed by the master shadow. Lagardere made his way carefully across the moat till he stood beneath the designated window. He drew his sword and tapped with the blade thrice against the pane. Then he sheathed his sword and waited upon events.

He had not long to wait. In a few moments the window above him turned softly on its hinges, and a head appeared in the open space. The chamber from which the window opened was unilluminated, and the light in the moat was so dim that Lagardere could only perceive the vague outline of a woman’s head and shoulders leaning forward into the darkness. Even in that moment of tension he felt himself stirred by a sharp regret that he should not be able to judge for himself as to the beauty of the lady whom the world called Gabrielle de Caylus, but whom he knew to be the Duchess de Nevers. A very low, sweet voice called to him through the darkness, speaking the Christian name of Nevers.

"Louis!" the woman said, and Lagardere immediately answered, "I am here." He spoke very low, that his voice might not be recognized, and because he had the mimic’s trick he made his voice as like as he could to the voice of Nevers.

Evidently his voice was not recognized, evidently the lady took him for her lord, for she immediately went on speaking very low and clear, her words falling rapidly from above on the ears of the waiting Lagardere.

"Do not speak, Louis," she said; "do not linger. I am watched; I fear danger. Take our dear Gabrielle."

As she spoke she leaned her body a little farther forward into the night and extended her arms towards her hearer.

Lagardere tingled with a sudden thrill as he realized that this beautiful woman was nearer to him, that she was seeking him, that she believed him to be her lover. And he realized with a pang that he, impudent in his libertinism, had entertained with a light heart the light hope in some audacious way to take by storm the love of this unknown woman. It had seemed, in Paris, an insolently boyishly possible, plausible adventure; but now, in his new knowledge and in this distant, lonely place, his enterprise, that, after all, was little more than an impish vision, seemed no other than a tragi-comical impertinence. All that he had known of Gabrielle de Caylus was that she was reported fair, and that she was loved by his enemy. All that he knew of her now was that she was his enemy’s wife, that she had a gracious voice, and that she loved his enemy very dearly; yet this was enough for Lagardere, this, and to know that the woman was all unconsciously trusting to his honor, to his courage, to his truth. And it was with an unfamiliar exaltation of the spirit that Lagardere swore to himself that the unwitting confidence of Gabrielle de Caylus should not be misplaced, and that all his hand, his heart, his sword could do for her service should cheerfully and faithfully be done.

Lagardere could see that she was holding something in the nature of a bundle in her out-stretched arms. This was the child, no doubt, of whom the masked shadow had spoken. Lagardere took the bundle cautiously in his hands and lowered it to a secure resting-place in his left arm. Then the Duchess de Nevers spoke again, and he saw that she was holding another and smaller object in her hand.

"This packet," she said, "contains the papers recording our marriage, torn from the register of the chapel. I feared they would be destroyed if I did not save them."

As she spoke she put the packet into Lagardere’s extended right hand, and as his fingers closed upon it the horn that he had heard before was wound again in the distance, but this time it seemed to his keen ears that the sound was nearer than before.

The woman in the window gave a shiver. "There is much to say," she sighed, "but no time to say it now. That may be a signal. Go, go, Louis. I love you."

In another moment her head was drawn back into the darkness of the apartment, the window closed, and the old castle was as silent and obscure as before. If it were not for the bundle in his left arm and the packet in his right hand, Lagardere might well have been tempted to believe that the whole episode was no more than the fancy of a dream. He thrust the packet into his breast, and then moved slowly towards the centre of the moat, tenderly cradling his precious charge. Peering closely down at the bundle, he could dimly discern what seemed to be a baby face among the encircling folds of silk which wrapped the child. It was sleeping soundly; the transition from its mother’s arms to the arms of the soldier of fortune had not wakened it, and now, as Lagardere gently rocked it in his arms, it continued to sleep.

The whimsicality of the adventure began to tickle Lagardere’s fancy. He seemed to be destined to play many parts that night. A few minutes back he had masqueraded as a bravo to deceive the mysterious shadows. Then he had pretended to be a husband to deceive the Duchess de Nevers. Now he imitated a nurse in order that Nevers’s child might sleep soundly. He looked again at the quiet morsel of humanity, and his heart was stirred with strange desires and melancholy imaginings. Raising his hand to his hat, he uncovered solemnly and made the baby a sweeping salute.

"Mademoiselle de Nevers," he whispered, "your loyal servant salutes you! Sleep in peace, pretty sweetheart."

Then he began to sing softly beneath his breath the burden of an old French lullaby which he remembered from his childhood days, with its burden of "Do, do, l’enfant do, l’enfant dormira tantôt," and as he sang the horn again sounded the same dreary, prolonged note as before, but now more clearly, and therefore plainly nearer.

"That must be the last signal," Lagardere thought, and on the moment he heard the sound of footsteps on the bridge, and out of the darkness beyond a man slowly descended into the darkness of the moat. In another instant Lagardere heard the well-known voice of Nevers calling out: "Halloo! Is any one here?"

Lagardere advanced to meet his appointed enemy. "This way, duke!" he cried. Then he added, reprovingly: "You would have been wiser to carry a lantern."

Nevers moved swiftly towards him along the kind of path that Lagardere had made in the bundle of hay, and as he came he spoke, and his tone was menacing and imperious. "Let me feel your blade. I can kill in the dark."

Lagardere answered him, ironically: "Gifted gentleman! But I want a talk first."

He had scarcely finished when a flash like lightning stabbed the darkness and came very near to stabbing him. It was the sword of Nevers, who was thrusting wildly before him into the gloom, while he cried: "Not a word! You have insulted a woman!"

Lagardere beat a rapid retreat for a few paces, and called to him: "I apologize humbly, abjectly. I kneel for forgiveness."

Nevers’s only answer was to follow up and thrust rapidly at Lagardere’s retreating figure, while he cried, fiercely: "Too late."

There was nothing for Lagardere to do but to defend himself in order to gain time with this passionate madman. Therefore, Lagardere drew his sword and parried the attack which Nevers was now making at close quarters. It was so dark in the moat that the two antagonists could scarcely see each other, and even the brightness of the blades was with difficulty distinguished. In a voice that was at once anxious and mocking, Lagardere cried to the duke: "Unnatural parent, do you wish to kill your child?"

The last word stopped Nevers like a blow. He lowered his sword and spoke wonderingly: "My child! What do you mean?"

Lagardere answered him, gravely: "At this moment Mademoiselle de Nevers is nestled in my arms."

Nevers echoed him, astonished: "My daughter, in your arms?"

Lagardere came quite close to the duke and showed him the bundle cradled in his elbow. "See for yourself; but step gently, for the young lady’s sleep must be respected."

Nevers gave a gasp of surprise. "What has happened?"

Lagardere answered him, slowly: "Madame de Nevers gave this little lady to me just now from yonder window, taking me for you. There is a plot to kill the child, to kill you."

Nevers gave a groan. "This is the hate of the Marquis de Caylus."

"I don’t know who is doing the job," Lagardere answered, "but what I do know is that the night is alive with assassins. I think I have got rid of some of them, but there may be others, wherefore prudence advises us to be off."

He could see Nevers stiffen himself in the darkness as he answered, proudly: "A Nevers fly?"

Lagardere shrugged his shoulders. "Even I have no passion for flight, but with a sweet young lady to defend—"

Nevers seemed to accept his correction. "You are right. Forgive me. Let us go."

The two men turned to leave the moat, but as they did so they were stopped by the sound of fresh footsteps on the bridge, and in another instant Nevers’s page had descended the steps and ran to join them.

"My lord!" he cried to the duke as soon as he reached the pair—"my lord, my lord, you are surrounded!"

Nevers gave an angry cry: "Too late!"

Lagardere answered him with a laugh. "Nonsense! There are but nine rascals."

But the laugh died away upon his lips when the page hurriedly interrupted: "Twenty at least."

Lagardere was staggered but emphatic. "Nine, duke, nine. I saw them, counted them, know them."

The page was equally emphatic. "They have got help since you came. There are smugglers hereabouts, and they have recruited their ranks from them."

Lagardere grunted. "Ungentlemanly," he protested, and then addressed Nevers: "Well, duke, we can manage ten apiece easily." He turned to the boy and gave him some quick instructions. "Creep through the wood behind the castle to the highway. Run like the devil to the cross-roads, where my men wait. Tell them Lagardere is in danger. They may be here in a quarter of an hour."

The boy answered him, decisively: "They shall be."

Lagardere patted him on the back. "Good lad," he said, and the boy darted from his side and disappeared into the darkness.

Lagardere turned to the duke. "There is no chance of escaping now without a scuffle," he said; "we must fight it out as well as we can. You and I, duke, ought not to think it a great matter to handle ten rascals apiece in this fighting-place, if only we intrench ourselves properly."

As he spoke he laid his precious bundle reverently in the hay-cart, where it seemed to sleep as peacefully as if it were in its native cradle, and began piling up the great masses of the bundles of hay in front of him to form a kind of rampart.

Nevers looked at him in astonishment. "Do you stand by me?"

Lagardere answered him cheerfully. "I came here to fight with you. I stay here to fight for you. I must fight somebody. I lose by the change, for it is a greater honor to fight Monsieur de Nevers than a battalion of bravos, but there is no help for it."

There was a little silence, and then Nevers said, slowly: "You are a splendid gentleman."

"There is nothing to make a fuss about," Lagardere said, lightly. "I am this little lady’s soldier. I came here in a cutthroat humor enough, but since I dandled her daintiness in my arms I’ve taken a fine liking for her father."

Nevers reached out his hand to Lagardere. "Henceforward we are comrades—brothers."

Lagardere clasped the extended hand. "Heart and hand, for life and death, brother."

As they stood there, hand clasped in hand, exchanging the dateless pledge of brotherhood, they heard the sound of many feet coming cautiously along the road to the bridge. The practised assassins walked catfoot, but there were others that shuffled in their care to go warily.

Nevers said, quietly: "Here come the swords."

Lagardere gave a jolly laugh. "Now for a glorious scrimmage!" he said, and made his sword sing in the air.

As he spoke the words, shade after shade began to descend the steps from the bridge and to advance cautiously into the moat. Lagardere counted them as they came: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Even in the darkness he thought he could recognize certain figures: the twisted form of the hunchback, the burly body of Cocardasse, the gaunt figure of the Norman, the barrel bulk of Staupitz. This barrel bulk came to the front of the shadows huddled together at the base of the hill, and spoke with the thick, Teutonic voice that Lagardere had heard so short a time before. "There they are," Staupitz said, and Lagardere could see a gleam in the night as the German pointed to where the two newly bound comrades stood together.

An instant answer came with the defiant cry of Nevers, "I am here!" which was immediately echoed by Lagardere. "I am here!" he shouted; and then added for himself: "Lagardere! Lagardere!"

Among the bravos a momentary note of comedy intruded upon the intended tragedy, as is often the way when humanity foregathers on sinister business. Cocardasse plucked Passepoil by the sleeve and drew him a little away from their fellow-ruffians. "We cannot fight against the Little Parisian," he whispered into the Norman’s ear. "We will look on, comrade." Passepoil nodded approval, but spoke no word. For the rest of that red adventure into the placid blackness of the night those two stood apart in the shadow, with their arms folded and their swords in their sheaths, sombrely watching the seven men that were their friends assailing the one man they loved. Such honor as they had forbade them to change sides and fight for the Little Parisian. They had been paid to range with the assailants of Nevers. But no payment could possibly prevail on them to attack Lagardere. So, according to their consciences, they split the difference and held aloof. Their abstention was not noticed by their fellows in the excitement of the time.

Numerous as they were, the bravos and their new recruits seemed unwilling to advance against two such famous swordsmen. Lagardere taunted their apathy:

"Come, you crows, the eagles wait for you." He felt that the words had a fine theatrical ring, and he enjoyed them as he flung them forth.

Nevers cried his cry, "I am here!" and Lagardere repeated it, "I am here!" He was longing to come to blows with the bandits, and to show them what two men could do against their multitude. His sword quivered like a snake in its eagerness to feel blades against its blade.

The barrel bulk of Staupitz spoke again addressing his little army. "Do you fear two men?" he asked. "Forward!"

On the word the eighteen men charged, the original seven leading; the eleven recruits, less whole-hearted in the business, came less alertly in the rear. The charge of the assassins was abruptly arrested by Lagardere’s bulwark, and over that bulwark the swords of the two defenders flashed and leaped, and before every thrust a man went down. It seemed an age of battle, it seemed an instant of battle. Then the baffled assassins recoiled, leaving two of the smugglers for dead, while Saldagno and Faenza were both badly wounded, and cursing hideously in Portuguese and Italian.

Behind the intrenchments, Lagardere chuckled as he heard. He turned to Nevers. "Are you wounded?" he asked, anxiously.

And Nevers answered, quietly: "A scratch on the forehead."

As he saw Nevers lift his hand for a moment to the space between his eyes, Lagardere groaned to himself, "My damned fencing-lesson," and mentally promised to make his enemies pay for their readiness to learn. He had not long to wait for an opportunity.

The discomfited bravos were rapidly gathering together for a fresh attack. This time their leading spirit was no longer Staupitz, disagreeably conscious of the difficulties of the enterprise, but the hunchback Æsop, who seemed to burn with a passion for slaughter. Lagardere likened him in his mind to some ungainly, obscene bird of prey, as he loomed out of the mirk waving his gaunt arms and shrieking in his rage and hate. "Kill them! kill them!" he screamed, as he rushed across the intervening space, and the bravos, heartened by his frenzy of fight, streamed after him, flinging themselves desperately against the piled-up hay, only to meet again the irresistible weapons of the friends, and again to recoil before them. Nevers held his own on one side; Lagardere held his own on the other. Nevers delivered his thrust at Æsop, and for the second time that day the hunchback felt the prick of steel between his eyes and saved himself by springing backward, his blood’s fire suddenly turned to ice. Lagardere’s sword was like a living fire. "Look out, Staupitz! Take that, Pepe!" he cried, and wounded both men. Then, while the German and the Spaniard fell back swearing, he turned joyously to Nevers, for his quick ear caught the sound of galloping on the distant highway.

"Good cheer, brother! I hear horses. My men are coming. Lagardere! Lagardere!"

Nevers responded joyously, "I am here! Victory!"

By this time the ground was strewn with the dead and wounded of their assailants, and, save for the slight scratch on Nevers’s forehead, the defenders were unhurt. The galloping of horses was now distinctly heard, and the sound was as displeasing to the bravos as it was delightful to Lagardere.

Delightful, indeed, for the sake of his companion, whom he was so hot to save. Otherwise, Lagardere, so far as he had clearness enough to think coherently at all, thought that he had never lived, had never hoped to live, through moments so delightful. To be in the thick of such a brawl, to be fighting side by side with the best swordsman in all France against what might well be considered overwhelming odds, and to be working havoc and disaster among his antagonists, stirred Lagardere’s blood more blithely than ripe wine. He had fought good fights before now, but never such a fight as this, in the black and dark night, with the dim air thick with hostile swords, and the night wind singing songs of battle in his ears. To live like this was to be very much alive; this had a zest denied to any calmly planned duello; this had a poetry fiercer and finer than the shock of action in the daylit lanes of war.

He called merrily to the bravos to renew their assault, but the bravos hung back discouraged; even the murder-zeal of Æsop had flagged. Then, in an instant, the attacked became the attackers, on the impulse of Nevers. Shouting anew the motto of his house, "I am here!" he leaped lightly over the rampart of hay, soliciting the swords of his foemen. Lagardere followed his example in an instant, and the pair now carried the war into the enemies’ country, charging the staggered assassins, who scattered before them. Lagardere drove some half a dozen of the rogues, including Staupitz and the discomfited Æsop, towards the bridge. Nevers, nearer to the castle, struck down in quick succession two of the ruffians that were rash enough to stand their ground, and stood for the moment alone and unassailed, the master of his part of the field.

Noiselessly behind him the little postern of Caylus opened. Noiselessly two shadows emerged, both masked and both holding drawn swords. Though it was still all blackness under the walls of the castle, there was now a little light in the sky, where a pale moon swam like a golden ship through wave after wave of engulfing cloud. The pair paused for a moment, as if to make sure that indeed their auxiliaries were being routed. Then the foremost shadow glided quietly close to Nevers, where he stood flushed with victory.

"I am here!" Nevers cried, exulting, as he waved his conquering sword and looked in vain for an antagonist.

"I am here!" repeated the shadow behind him, mockingly, and thrust his weapon deep into the victor’s side. Nevers reeled before the suddenness and sureness of the stroke, and fell on his knees to the ground with a great cry that startled Lagardere and stayed him in his triumph. Nevers, striving to rise, turned his face against his treacherous enemy, and seemed to recognize the shadow in spite of its masked visage.

"You!" he gasped—"you, for whom I would have given my life!"

"Well, I take it," the shadow whispered, grimly, and stabbed him again. Nevers fell in a huddle to the earth, but he raised his dying breath in a cry.

"Help, Lagardere! help! Save the child! Avenge me!"

Then he died. Though the assassin stabbed again, he only stabbed a corpse. Lagardere, who was brooming his foes before him as a gardener brooms autumnal leaves from grass, had been arrested in his course by the first cry of the wounded Nevers. While he paused, his antagonists, rallying a little and heartened by their numbers, made ready for a fresh attack. Then, swiftly, came Nevers’s last wild call for help, and Lagardere, with a great fear and a great fury in his heart, turned from the steps leading to the bridge and made to join his comrade. But the clustering swordsmen heard that cry, too, and found new courage in the sound. It meant that one of the demi-gods with whom, as it seemed, they were warring, was now no more than common clay, and that there was good hope of ending the other. They came together; they came upon Lagardere; they strove to stay him in his way. They might as well have tried to stay a hurricane. Lagardere beat them back, cut them down, and swept through their reeling line to the spot where Nevers was lying.

"I am here!" he shouted, and faced the masked shadow. "Murderer, you hide your face, but you shall bear my mark, that I may know you when we meet again."

The slayer of Nevers had stood on guard by the side of his victim when Lagardere came towards him. By his side the masked companion extended a cautious blade. In one wild second Lagardere beat down the slayer’s sword and wounded the unknown man deeply on the wrist. The assassin’s sword fell from his hand, and the assassin, with a cry of rage, retreated into the darkness. Lagardere had only time to brand the traitor; he had not the time to kill him. Looking swiftly about him, he saw that his vengeance must be patient if he were to save his skin from that shambles. The sword of the satellite defended the master; other swords began to gleam anew. From all the quarters of that field of fight the bravos were gathering again, all there were left of them, and Lagardere was now alone. With the activity of the skilled acrobat he leaped backward to the cart, and, while he still faced his enemies and while his terrible sword glittered in ceaseless movement, he snatched the child from the sheltering hay with his left hand, and, turning, began to run at his full speed towards the bridge. There were bravos in his path that thought to stay him, but they gave way before the headlong fury of his rush as if they believed him to be irresistible, and he reached the steps in safety.

Once there he turned again and raised his sword in triumph, while he cried, fiercely: "Nevers is dead! Long live Nevers!"

By now the galloping of horses sounded loud as immediate thunder, and even as Lagardere spoke a number of shadowy horsemen had occupied the bridge behind him, and those in the moat could see above them the glint of levelled muskets. The servant shadow held the postern open with a trembling hand to harbor the survivors of the strife. But the man that had killed Nevers, the man that Lagardere had branded, had still a hate to satisfy.

"A thousand crowns," he cried, "to the man who gets the child!"

Not a man of all the baffled assassins answered to that challenge. Standing upon the steps of the bridge, Lagardere caught it up.

"Seek her behind my sword, assassin! You wear my mark, and I will find you out! You shall all suffer! After the lackeys, the master! Sooner or later Lagardere will come to you!"