eces had discouraged the
besiegers from attacking this point, and had kept the besieged from any
idea of addition to its means of defence. Thus, on the one side, the
vedettes and advanced posts were at a distance, and on the other, the
sentinels were few and ill supported. A young Spaniard, carrying a long
gun, with its rest suspended at his side and the burning match in his
right hand, who was walking with nonchalance upon the rampart, stopped
to look at Cinq-Mars, who was riding about the ditches and moats.

"Senor caballero," he cried, "are you going to take the bastion by
yourself on horseback, like Don Quixote--Quixada de la Mancha?"

At the same time he detached from his side the iron rest, planted it in
the ground, and supported upon it the barrel of his gun in order to take
aim, when a grave and older Spaniard, enveloped in a dirty brown cloak,
said to him in his own tongue:

"'Ambrosio de demonio', do you not know that it is forbidden to throw
away powder uselessly, before sallies or attacks are made, merely to
have the pleasure of killing a boy not worth your match? It was in this
very place that Charles the Fifth threw the sleeping sentinel into the
ditch and drowned him. Do your duty, or I shall follow his example."

Ambrosio replaced the gun upon his shoulder, the rest at his side, and
continued his walk upon the rampart.

Cinq-Mars had been little alarmed at this menacing gesture, contenting
himself with tightening the reins of his horse and bringing the spurs
close to his sides, knowing that with a single leap of the nimble animal
he should be carried behind the wall of a hut which stood near by, and
should thus be sheltered from the Spanish fusil before the operation
of the fork and match could be completed. He knew, too, that a tacit
convention between the two armies prohibited marksmen from firing upon
the sentinels; each party would have regarded it as assassination.
The soldier who had thus prepared to attack Cinq-Mars must have been
ignorant of this understanding. Young D'Effiat, therefore, made no
visible movement; and when the sentinel had resumed his walk upon
the rampart, he again betook himself to his ride upon the turf, and
presently saw five cavaliers directing their course toward him. The
first two, who came on at full gallop, did not salute him, but, stopping
close to him, leaped to the ground, and he found himself in the arms of
the Counsellor de Thou, who embraced him tenderly, while