ring like a savage tiger, he lowered his
head, and bounded clean out into the court. Scarcely, however, had his
foot touched the wet grass, when he slipped forward, and fell heavily
on his back. A dozen swords flashed above him as he lay, and only by
the most immense efforts of the officer was he spared death in a hundred
wounds.

[Illustration: Capture of the "Red-Beard" 334]

The defeat of their leader seemed to subdue all the daring courage of
his party; the few who were able to escape dashed hither and thither,
through passages and doorways they were well acquainted with; while the
flagged floor was bathed in blood from the rest, as they lay in mangled
and frightful forms, dead and dying on every side.

Like one in some dreadful dream, I stood spectator of this savage
strife, wishing that some stray bullet had found my heart, yet ashamed
to die with such a stain upon my honor. I crossed my arms before my
breast, and waited for my doom. Two gendarmes passed quickly to and
fro with torches, examining the faces and looks of those who were still
likely to live, when suddenly one of them cried out, as he stood before
me,--

"What 's this? An officer of hussars here!"

The exclamation brought an officer to the spot, who, holding a lantern
to my face, said quickly,--"How is this, sir? how came you here?"

"Here is my sword, sir," said I, drawing it from the scabbard; "I place
myself under arrest. In another place, and to other judges, I must
explain my conduct."

"_Parbleu!_ Jacques," said the officer, addressing another who sat, while
his wounds were being bound up, on a chair near, "this affair is worse
than we thought of. Here 's one of the huitieme in the thick of it."

"I hope, sir," said I, addressing the young man, whose arm was bleeding
profusely from a sabre wound,--"I hope, sir, your wound may not be of
consequence."

He looked up suddenly, and while a smile of the most insulting sarcasm
curled his bloodless lip, answered,--

"I thank you, sir, for your sympathy; but you must forgive me, if one of
these days I cannot bandy consolations with you."

"You are right, Lieutenant," said a dragoon, who lay bleeding from a
dreadful cut in the forehead; "I'd not exchange places with him myself
this minute for all his epaulettes."

With an overwhelming sense of my own degraded position, when to such
taunts as these I dared not reply, I stood mute and confounded.

Meantime the soldiers were engaged in collec