od flower which spattered
the field.

It was at this moment I saw Juste Duvarney making towards me, hatred and
deadly purpose in his eyes. I had will enough to meet him, and to kill
him too, yet I could not help but think of Alixe. Gabord saw him, also,
and, being nearer, made for me as well. For that act I cherish his
memory. The thought was worthy of a gentleman of breeding; he had the
true thing in his heart. He would save us--two brothers--from fighting,
by fighting me himself.

He reached me first, and with an "Au diable!" made a stroke at me. It
was a matter of sword and sabre now. Clark met Juste Duvarney's rush;
and there we were, at as fine a game of cross-purposes as you can think:
Clark hungering for Gabord's life (Gabord had once been his jailer,
too), and Juste Duvarney for mine; the battle faring on ahead of us.
Soon the two were clean cut off from the French army, and must fight to
the death or surrender.

Juste Duvarney spoke only once, and then it was but the rancorous word
"Renegade!" nor did I speak at all; but Clark was blasphemous, and
Gabord, bleeding, fought with a sputtering relish.

"Fair fight and fowl for spitting," he cried. "Go home to heaven,
dickey-bird."

Between phrases of this kind we cut and thrust for life, an odd sort of
fighting. I fought with a desperate alertness, and presently my sword
passed through his body, drew out, and he shivered--fell--where he
stood, collapsing suddenly like a bag. I knelt beside him, and lifted up
his head. His eyes were glazing fast.

"Gabord! Gabord!" I called, grief-stricken, for that work was the worst
I ever did in this world.

He started, stared, and fumbled at his waistcoat. I quickly put my hand
in, and drew out--one of Mathilde's wooden crosses.

"To cheat--the devil--yet--aho!" he whispered, kissed the cross, and so
was done with life.

When I turned from him, Clark stood beside me. Dazed as I was, I did not
at first grasp the significance of that fact. I looked towards the
town, and saw the French army hustling into the St. Louis Gate; saw the
Highlanders charging the bushes at the Cote Ste. Genevieve, where the
brave Canadians made their last stand; saw, not fifty feet away, the
noblest soldier of our time, even General Wolfe, dead in the arms of
Mr. Henderson, a volunteer in the Twenty-Second; and then, almost at my
feet, stretched out as I had seen him lie in the Palace courtyard two
years before, Juste Duvarney.

But now he w