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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
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