f the _queue_.

"Loch Sloy!" cried the leader, somewhat too theatrically for illusion.

"Cammercy for me!" thought Montaiglon: he was upon the tail, and
clutched to drag the last man down. Fate was kind, she gave the bare
knees of the enemy to his hand, and behold! here was his instrument--in
the customary knife stuck in the man's stocking. It was Count Victor's
at a flash: he stood a step higher, threw his arm over the shoulder of
the man, pulled him backward into the pit of the stair and stabbed at
him as he fell.

"_Un!_" said he as the wretch collapsed upon himself, and the knife
seemed now unnecessary. He clutched the second man, who could not guess
the tragedy behind, for the night's business was all in front, and
surely only friends were in the rear--he clutched the second lower, and
threw him backward over his head.

"_Deux!_" said Count Victor, as the man fell limp behind him upon his
unconscious confederate.

The third in front turned like a viper when Count Victor's clutch came
on his waist, and drove out with his feet. The act was his own undoing.
It met with no resistance, and the impetus of his kick carried him off
the balance and threw him on the top of his confederates below.

"_Trois!_" said Montaiglon. "Pulling corks is the most excellent
training for such a warfare," and he set himself almost cheerfully to
number four.

But number four was not in the neck of the bottle: this ferment behind
him propelled him out upon the stairhead, and Montaiglon, who had thrown
himself upon him, fell with him on the floor. Both men recovered their
feet at a spring. A moment's pause was noisy with the cries of the
domestic in her room, then the Frenchman felt a hand pass rapidly
over his habiliments and seek hurriedly for his throat, as on a sudden
inspiration. What that precluded was too obvious: he fancied he could
feel the poignard already plunging in his ribs, and he swiftly tried a
fall with his opponent.

It was a wrestler's grip he sought, but a wrestler he found, for arms
of a gigantic strength went round him, clasping his own to his side and
rendering his knife futile; a Gaelic malediction hissed in his ear; he
felt breath hot and panting; his own failed miserably, and his blood
sang in his head with the pressure of those tremendous arms that caught
him to a chest like a cuirass of steel. But if his hands were bound his
feet were free: he placed one behind his enemy and flung his weight upon
him, so