rillon answered: and he moved down
the room, apparently at his ease. "My friend here has told me of his
ill-luck. He is resolved to perform his bargain. But first, M. Berthaud,
I have a proposal to make to you. His life is yours. You have won it.
Well, I will set you five hundred crowns against it."

The scowl on Berthaud's face did not relax. "No," he said
contemptuously. "I will not play with you, M. de Crillon. Let the fool
die. What is he to you?"

"Nothing, and yet I have a fancy to win him," Crillon replied lightly.
"Come, I will stake a thousand crowns against him! A thousand crowns for
a life! _Mon Dieu_," he added, with a whimsical glance at Bazan, "but
you are dear, my friend!"

Indeed, half a score of faces shone with cupidity, and twice as many
bearded lips watered. A thousand crowns! A whole thousand crowns! But to
the surprise of most--a few knew their man--Berthaud shook his head.

"No," he said, "I will not play! I won his life, and I will have it."

"Fifteen hundred crowns. I will set that! Fifteen----"

"No!"

"Two thousand, then! Two thousand, man! And I will throw in my chain. It
is worth five hundred more."

"No! No! No!"

"Then, say what you will play for!" the great man roared, his face
swelling with rage. "Thousand devils and all tonsured! I have a mind to
win his life. What will you have against it?"

"Against it?"

"Ay!"

"Yours!" said M. Berthaud, very softly.

Bazan drew in his breath--sharply: otherwise the silence was so intense
that the fall of the wood-ashes from the dying fire could be heard. The
immense, the boundless audacity of the proposal made some smile and some
start. But none smiled so grimly as M. Michel Berthaud the challenger
and none started so little as M. de Crillon, the challenged.

"A high bid!" he said, lifting his chin with something almost of humour;
and then glancing round him, as a wolf might glance, if the sheep turned
on him. "You ask much, M. Berthaud."

"I will ask less then," replied Berthaud, with irony. "If I win, I will
give you his life. He shall go free whether you win or lose, M. de
Crillon."

"That is much!" with answering irony.

"Much or little----"

"It is understood?"

"It is," Berthaud rejoined with a sarcastic bow.

"Then I accept!" Crillon cried: and with a movement so brisk that some
recoiled, he sat down at the table. "I accept. Silence!" he continued,
turning sharply upon Bazan, whose cry of remonstrance rang above the