at bay with his good left arm a pair of attackers. These were in the
dress of gentlemen, and wore masks as if their cheeks blushed (well they
might) for the deeds of their hands.

A broad window in the Hotel de Lorraine was flung open; a man leaned far
out with a torch. The bright glare in our faces bewildered our
gloom-accustomed eyes; I could not see what I was about, and rammed my
point against my Spaniard's hilt, snapping my blade.

The sudden impact sent him stumbling back a pace, and M. Etienne, who,
with the quick eye of the born fencer, saw everything, cried to me,
"Here!"

I darted back into the doorway beside him. His two assailants finding
that they gained nothing by their joint attack, but rather hampered each
other, one dropped back to watch his comrade, the cleverer swordsman.
This was decidedly a man of talent, but he was shorter in the arm than
my master and had the disadvantage of standing on the ground, whereas M.
Etienne was up one step. He could not force home any of his
shrewd-planned thrusts; nor could he drive M. Etienne out of his coign
to where in the open the two could make short work of him. The rapiers
clashed and parted and twisted about each other and flew apart again;
and then before I could see who was touched the attacker fell to his
knees, with M. Etienne's sword in his breast.

M. Etienne wrenched the blade out; the wounded man sank backward, his
mask-string breaking. He was the one whom I had thought him--Francois de
Brie.

M. Etienne was ready for the second gentleman, but neither he nor the
soldier attacked. The torch-bearer in the window, with a shout, waved
his arm toward the square. A mob of armed men hurled itself around the
corner, a pikeman with lowered point in the van.

This was not combat; it was butchery. M. Etienne, with a little moan,
lifted his eyes for the first time from his assailant to the turret
window. In the same instant I felt the door behind us give. Throwing my
whole weight upon it, I seized M. Etienne and pulled him over the
threshold. Some one inside slammed the door to, just as the Spaniard
hurled himself against it.

XX

_"On guard, monsieur."_

We found ourselves in a narrow panelled passageway, lighted by a
flickering oil-lamp pendent from a bracket. Confronting us was our
preserver--a little old lady in black velvet, leaning back in chuckling
triumph against the shot bolts.

She was very small and very old. Her figure was bent and s