hat they were heard above all the uproar. He struck
right and left, hitting friends and enemies, until a wide space was
cleared around him. As his rapier made a hole in some breast, and the
warm blood spurted over his hands and face, he, with dilated eye,
expanded nostrils, and clinched teeth, regained the ground lost, and
again approached the beleaguered house.

De Mouy, after a terrible combat in the staircase and hall, had finally
come out of the burning house like a true hero. In the midst of all the
struggle he had not ceased to cry, "Here, Maurevel!--Maurevel, where are
you?" insulting him by the most opprobrious epithets.

He at length appeared in the street, supporting on one arm his mistress,
half naked and nearly fainting, and holding a poniard between his teeth.
His sword, flaming by the sweeping action he gave it, traced circles of
white or red, according as the moon glittered on the blade or a flambeau
glared on its blood-stained brightness.

Maurevel had fled. La Huriere, driven back by De Mouy as far as
Coconnas, who did not recognize him, and received him at sword's point,
was begging for mercy on both sides. At this moment Mercandon perceived
him, and knew him, by his white scarf, to be one of the murderers. He
fired. La Huriere shrieked, threw up his arms, dropped his arquebuse,
and, after having vainly attempted to reach the wall, in order to
support himself, fell with his face flat on the earth.

De Mouy took advantage of this circumstance, turned down the Rue de
Paradis, and disappeared.

Such had been the resistance of the Huguenots that the De Guise party,
quite repulsed, had retired into their hotel, fearing to be besieged and
taken in their own habitation.

Coconnas who, intoxicated with blood and tumult, had reached that degree
of excitement when, with the men of the south more especially, courage
changes into madness, had not seen or heard anything, and noticed only
that there was not such a roar in his ears, and that his hands and face
were a little dryer than they had been. Dropping the point of his sword,
he saw near him a man lying face downward in a red stream, and around
him burning houses.

It was a very short truce, for just as he was approaching this man, whom
he recognized as La Huriere, the door of the house he had in vain tried
to burst in, opened, and old Mercandon, followed by his son and two
nephews, rushed upon him.

"Here he is! here he is!" cried they all, with one v