into the air; and Cinq-Mars, De Thou,
Coislin, De Mouy, Londigny, officers of the red companies, and all the
young noblemen, with swords in their right hands and pistols in their
left, dashing, pushing, and doing each other by their eagerness as much
harm as they did the enemy, finally rushed upon the platform of the
bastion, as water poured from a vase, of which the opening is too small,
leaps out in interrupted gushes.

Disdaining to occupy themselves with the vanquished soldiers, who cast
themselves at their feet, they left them to look about the fort,
without even disarming them, and began to examine their conquest, like
schoolboys in vacation, laughing with all their hearts, as if they were
at a pleasure-party.

A Spanish officer, enveloped in his brown cloak, watched them with a
sombre air.

"What demons are these, Ambrosio?" said he to a soldier. "I never have
met with any such before in France. If Louis XIII has an entire army
thus composed, it is very good of him not to conquer all Europe."

"Oh, I do not believe they are very numerous; they must be some poor
adventurers, who have nothing to lose and all to gain by pillage."

"You are right," said the officer; "I will try to persuade one of them
to let me escape."

And slowly approaching, he accosted a young light-horseman, of about
eighteen, who was sitting apart from his comrades upon the parapet. He
had the pink-and-white complexion of a young girl; his delicate hand
held an embroidered handkerchief, with which he wiped his forehead and
his golden locks He was consulting a large, round watch set with rubies,
suspended from his girdle by a knot of ribbons.

The astonished Spaniard paused. Had he not seen this youth overthrow
his soldiers, he would not have believed him capable of anything
beyond singing a romance, reclined upon a couch. But, filled with the
suggestion of Ambrosio, he thought that he might have stolen these
objects of luxury in the pillage of the apartments of a woman; so, going
abruptly up to him, he said:

"Hombre! I am an officer; will you restore me to liberty, that I may
once more see my country?"

The young Frenchman looked at him with the gentle expression of his age,
and, thinking of his own family, he said:

"Monsieur, I will present you to the Marquis de Coislin, who will, I
doubt not, grant your request; is your family of Castile or of Aragon?"

"Your Coislin will ask the permission of somebody else, and will make
me w