skill to give him the right sort and size of cut--not a
mere scratch, which would never have satisfied him--but one of those
cuts, trifling in themselves, but which produce a good deal of blood,
and which enable a fellow to carry his arm in a sling, and so win the
sympathy of the ladies. Just as I had loved the youth on first seeing
him, so I looked into his soul, and fancied his delight, his swagger,
his airs of consequence, at appearing in company with his arm in a
sling; and although I felt perfectly sure that he would die rather
than reveal the name of the young lady, or rather the child about whom
we had fallen out, I felt assured he could not keep to himself that he
had fought in beauty's quarrel. And the amusement Count Saxe would
have out of it!

We stripped off our coats, our swords were put into our hands, and I
went about to oblige my young friend. I found him a fairly good
swordsman for his age, but I could have disarmed him at any moment.
However, that would have broken his heart. So I clashed away
good-naturedly, making him think he was having a devil of a time,
until, beginning to feel a little winded, I thought it time to give
him the stroke he wanted.

I have a cut in tierce of which I have always had the mastery, and it
was this cut I was giving Cheverny, when suddenly the lantern back of
him went out. At the same moment his foot slipped; his guard gave way
completely, and my sword's point went exactly where I had never meant
it to go--into his left side. He dropped like a stone.

I was the first to reach him, and turned him over on his back.
Bellegarde, a silly popinjay, lost his head completely, and began to
howl for one of those new-fangled screw tourniquets which had been
invented by Jean Louis Petit, not so long before. But of course nobody
had one, or could get one, or knew how to use it, had it dropped from
heaven. Jacques Haret, as usual, kept his wits and disappeared in
search of a doctor and a coach.

I bound my mantle around Gaston Cheverny's body, told him to lie
still, meanwhile examining him to see if he was about to die. I
thought he was. His face was quite green, his extremities grew cold
and he was deathly sick. But his eye retained its undimmed brightness;
and while he was lying there on the ground, in this sad state, he
burst out into a feeble laugh.

"Babache, you are so damned ugly," he whispered.

Was it strange I loved the boy who was so much himself in such
circumstances