You shall have it now,' said he,
aloud; 'I owe you this,--and this.' True to his word, he twice pierced
me in the back, outside the guard. Encouraged by success, he again
closed on me; while I, piqued by his last assault, advanced to meet him.

"Our tempers were both excited; but his far more than mine. The struggle
was a severe one. Three several times his blade passed between my arm
and my body; and at last after a desperate rally, he dropped on one
knee, and gave me the point here, beneath the chest. Before he could
extricate his blade, I plunged mine into his chest, and pushed till I
heard the hilt come clink against his ribs. The blood spurted upwards,
over my face and breast, as he fell backwards. I wiped it hurriedly from
my eyes, and bent over him. He gave a shudder and a little faint moan,
and all was still."

"You killed him?" cried out three or four of us together.

"_Ma foi!_ yes. The 'coup' was mortal; he never stirred after. As for
me," continued Francois, "I surrendered myself a prisoner to the
officer on guard at the gate. I was tried ten days after by a military
commission, and acquitted. My own evidence was my accusation
and my defence."

"_Ventrebleu!_ had I been on the court-martial, you had not been here
to tell the story," said the old major, as his face became almost purple
with passion.

"Nonsense!" said Tascher, jeeringly. "What signifies a maitre d'armes
the more or the less?"

"Monsieur will probably explain himself," said Francois, with one of his
cold smiles of excessive deference.

"It is exactly what I mean to do, Francois."

"Come, sirs, none of this," broke in the major. "Lieutenant Tascher,
you may not fancy being placed under an arrest when the enemy is in the
field. Master Francois, do you forget the sentence of a court-martial is
hanging over your head for an affair at Elchingen, where you insulted a
young officer of the hussars?"

"In that case I must be permitted to say that Maitre Francois conducted
himself like a man of honor," said I.

"_Parbleu!_ and got the worst of it besides," cried he, placing his hand
on his hip. The tone of his voice as he said this, and the grimace he
made, restored the party once more to good-humor, and we chatted away
pleasantly till day was breaking.

As Tascher strolled along with me towards my quarters, I was rejoiced
to discover that he had never heard of my name as being mixed up in the
Chouan conspiracy; nor was he aware with how li