me
within arm's length of him. You may think that I had my hilt well to the
front, and that I had a very good look at these two people who were
approaching us.

The one was tall, remarkably so, and of very spare frame, while the
other was rather below the usual height, and had a brisk, determined way
of walking. They each wore black cloaks, which were slung right across
their figures, and hung down upon one side, like the mantles of Murat's
dragoons. They had flat black caps, like those I have since seen in
Spain, which threw their faces into darkness, though I could see the
gleam of their eyes from beneath them. With the moon behind them and
their long black shadows walking in front, they were such figures as one
might expect to meet at night near the Abbot's Beech. I can remember
that they had a stealthy way of moving, and that as they approached, the
moonshine formed two white diamonds between their legs and the legs of
their shadows.

The Emperor had paused, and these two strangers came to a stand also
within a few paces of us. I had drawn up close to my companion's elbow,
so that the four of us were facing each other without a word spoken. My
eyes were particularly fixed upon the taller one, because he was
slightly the nearer to me, and I became certain as I watched him that he
was in the last state of nervousness. His lean figure was quivering all
over, and I heard a quick, thin panting like that of a tired dog.
Suddenly one of them gave a short, hissing signal. The tall man bent his
back and his knees like a diver about to spring, but before he could
move, I had jumped with drawn sabre in front of him. At the same instant
the smaller man bounded past me, and buried a long poniard in the
Emperor's heart.

My God! the horror of that moment! It is a marvel that I did not drop
dead myself. As in a dream, I saw the grey coat whirl convulsively
round, and caught a glimpse in the moonlight of three inches of red
point which jutted out from between the shoulders. Then down he fell
with a dead man's gasp upon the grass, and the assassin, leaving his
weapon buried in his victim, threw up both his hands and shrieked with
joy. But I--I drove my sword through his midriff with such frantic
force, that the mere blow of the hilt against the end of his breast-bone
sent him six paces before he fell, and left my reeking blade ready for
the other. I sprang round upon him with such a lust for blood upon me as
I had never felt, an