n his knee. The lady at the window
shrieked again; but Coconnas rose instantly; he had knelt only to avoid
the bullet, which struck the wall about two feet beneath where the lady
was standing.

Almost at the same moment a cry of rage issued from the window of
Mercandon's house, and an old woman, who recognized Coconnas as a
Catholic, from his white scarf and cross, hurled a flower-pot at him,
which struck him above the knee.

"Capital!" said Coconnas; "one throws flowers at me and at the other,
flower-pots; if this goes on, they'll be tearing houses down!"

"Thanks, mother, thanks!" said the young man.

"Go on, wife, go on," said old Mercandon; "but take care of yourself."

"Wait, Monsieur de Coconnas, wait!" said the young woman of the Hotel de
Guise, "I will have them shoot at the windows!"

"Ah! So it is a hell of women, is it?" said Coconnas. "Some of them for
me and the others against me! By Heaven! let us put an end to this!"

The scene in fact was much changed and was evidently approaching its
climax. Coconnas, who was wounded to be sure, but who had all the vigor
of his four and twenty years, was used to arms, and angered rather than
weakened by the three or four scratches he had received, now faced only
Mercandon and his son: Mercandon, an aged man between sixty and seventy;
his son, a youth of sixteen or eighteen, pale, fair-haired and slender,
had flung down his pistol which had been discharged and was therefore
useless, and was feebly brandishing a sword half as long as the
Piedmontese's. The father, armed only with an unloaded arquebuse and a
poniard, was calling for assistance. An old woman--the young man's
mother--in the opposite window held in her hand a piece of marble which
she was preparing to hurl.

Coconnas, excited on the one hand by threats, and on the other by
encouragements, proud of his two-fold victory, intoxicated with powder
and blood, lighted by the reflection of a burning house, elated by the
idea that he was fighting under the eyes of a woman whose beauty was as
superior as he was sure her rank was high,--Coconnas, like the last of
the Horatii, felt his strength redouble, and seeing the young man
falter, rushed on him and crossed his small weapon with his terrible and
bloody rapier. Two strokes sufficed to drive it out of its owner's
hands. Then Mercandon tried to drive Coconnas back, so that the
projectiles thrown from the window might be sure to strike him, but
Coconnas, to par