e.
"That I may want. But I will set my life against yours!"

A chuckle went round. "Bravo!" cried half a dozen voices. One man in the
rear, whose business it was to enlist men in the Duke's guard, pressed
forward, scenting a recruit.

"Your life against mine! With these?" the winner answered, holding up
the dice.

"Yes, or as you please." He had not indeed meant with those: he had
spoken in the soreness of defeat, intending a challenge.

The other shook his head. "No," he said, "no. No man can say that Michel
Berthaud ever balked his player, but it is not a fair offer. You have
lost all, my friend, and I have won all. I am rich, you are poor. 'Tis
no fair stake. But I will tell you what I will do. I will set you your
gold chain and seventy crowns--against your life if you like."

A roar of laughter hailed the proposal. "A hundred!" cried several, "a
hundred!"

"Very well. The gold chain and a hundred. Be it so!"

"But my life?" the young man muttered, gazing at him in bewilderment.
"Of what use will it be to you, M. Berthaud?"

"That is my business," was the dry answer. "If you lose, it is forfeit
to me. That is all, and the long and the short of it. To be frank, I
have a service which I wish you to perform for me."

"And if I will not perform it?"

"Then I will take your word as a gentleman that you will kill yourself.
Observe, however, that if I win I shall allow you a choice, my friend."

He leaned back with that, meeting with a faint smile and half-lowered
eye-lids, the various looks bent on him. Some stared, some nodded secret
comprehension, some laughed outright, or nudged one another and
whispered. For four evenings they, the habitues of the place, had
watched this play duel go on, but they had not looked for an end so
abnormal as this. They had known men stake wives and mistresses, love
and honour, ay, their very clothes, and go home naked through the
streets; for the streets of Paris saw strange things in those days. But
life? Well, even that they had seen men stake in effect, once, twice, a
hundred times; but never in so many words, never on a wager as novel as
this. So with an amazement which no duel, fought as was the custom in
that day, three to three, or six to six, would have evoked, they
gathered round the little table under the candles and waited for the
issue.

The young man shivered. Then, "I accept," he said slowly. In effect he
was desperate, driven to his last straits. He had lost hi