lf to sleep. His face was towards his house and the
rising dawn, and he gazed that way with dark eyes wide open. His lips
moved, but no one heard what he said. All the fighting fury was gone
from his face, and as a thin thread of blood trickled down from his side
and began to redden the grass beneath, his look, at first startled and
painful, became every moment more peaceful, more satisfied. His eyelids
slowly drooped and fell; he died smiling, his whole attitude and
expression so lifelike that the two witnesses, Ratoneau and Simon, could
scarcely believe that he was dead.

The General stood immovable. Simon, after a minute, knelt down and felt
the pulse and examined the wound. It had been almost instantly fatal,
the pulse was still.

"Mon Dieu, Monsieur le General, you have killed him!" Simon said, under
his breath.

Ratoneau glared at him for a moment before he spoke.

"He tried to kill me," he said. "You were there, you can bear witness,
he challenged and attacked me, the little fighting-cock. I wish it had
been his nephew. But now for him! Come, leave the body there; the
servants will fetch it in presently."

He started to walk towards the house, carrying his drawn sword in his
hand. In the middle of the slope he turned round with a furious look to
his follower.

"Those who insult me, and stand in my way--you see the lessons I teach
them!" he said hoarsely, and walked on.

The western front of Les Chouettes, the tower rising into the slowly
lightening sky, presented a lifeless face to the woods where its master
lay. All the windows were closed and shuttered; dead silence reigned.
When the General shouted an order to open, beating with his sword-hilt
at a window, he was only answered by the growling and barking of the
dogs, whom the defenders had called in. He walked round by the south to
the east front; the same chorus accompanied him, but of human voices
there were none. He whistled up the rest of the gendarmes, and ordered
them to force the dining-room window. Then the shutters of a window
above it were pushed open, and a white-haired man looked out into the
court.

"Now, old Chouan, do you hear me?" shouted Ratoneau, in his most
overbearing tones. "Come down and open some of these windows."

"Pardon, monsieur," old Joubard answered quietly. "I have Monsieur de
la Mariniere's orders to keep them shut."

"Have you, indeed? Well, it makes no difference to him whether they are
shut or open. Tell his neph