emoved by his friends. Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! Condemn me not to this.
Think, I beseech you. The grave is infected, impregnated with
contagion. Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!"

The fellow had thrust at his child's life--St. Georges remembered it
even as he spoke!--yet, being a brave soldier himself, he could not
condemn the ruffian to such horrors as these. Revenge he would have
taken earlier, in the heat of the fight; would have killed the man
with his own hand, even as he would have killed that other, the
leader, had the chance arisen; but--this was beneath him. Therefore,
he said:

"Bind him, Boussac, to this old yew. Bind him with his horse's reins
and gag him. Then he must take his chance--the night grows late. We
must away."

It was done almost as soon as ordered, the mousquetaire detaching the
coarse reins of the man's horse--which was itself wounded and seemed
incapable of action--and lashing him to the tree, while he took one of
his stirrup leathers and bade him open his mouth to be gagged.

"To-morrow," he remarked to the unhappy wretch, "at matins you may be
released. Meanwhile, heart up! you are not alone. You have your
comrades for company." And he glanced down at the others lying still
in death.

"Stay," said St. Georges, "ere you put the gag in his mouth let me ask
him one question.--Who," turning to the shivering creature before him,
"who was your leader? Answer me that, and even now you shall go free.
Answer!"

For a moment the man hesitated--doubtless he was wondering if he could
not invent some name which might pass for a real one, and so give him
his freedom--then, perhaps because his inventive powers were not
great, or--which was more probable--his captor might have some means
of knowing that he was lying, he answered:

"I do not know. I never saw him before."

"You do not know, or will not tell--which?"

"I do not know."

"Whence came he to your village? From what quarter?"

"The north road. The great road from Paris. He had not come many
leagues; his horse was fresh."

"So! What was he like? He did not wear his burganet all the time--when
he ate, for instance."

"He was young," the man replied, hoping, it may be, that by his ready
answers he would earn his pardon even yet, "passably young. Of about
monsieur's age. With a brown beard cropped close and gray eyes."

"Is that all you can tell?"

"It is all, monsieur. _Ayez pitie_, monsieur."

"Gag him," said St. Georges to Boussac, "and let u