the price of them, and of the slight you have put upon
her."

"My God, Marsac!" cried the other, roused to an equal fierceness. "Will
you explain?"

"Aye," snarled Marsac, and his sword flashed from his scabbard, "I'll
explain. As God lives, I'll explain--with this!" And he whirled his
blade under the eyes of the invalid. "Come, my master, the comedy's
played out. Cast aside that crutch and draw; draw, man, or, sangdieu,
I'll run you through as you stand!"

There was a commotion below. The landlord and a posse of his
satellites--waiters, ostlers, and stableboys--rushed between them, and
sought to restrain the bloodthirsty Marsac. But he shook them off as
a bull shakes off a pack of dogs, and like an angry bull, too, did he
stand his ground and bellow. In a moment his sweeping sword had cleared
a circle about him. In its lightning dartings hither and thither at
random, it had stung a waiter in the calf, and when the fellow saw the
blood staining his hose, he added to the general din his shrieks that
he was murdered. Marsac swore and threatened in a breath, and a kitchen
wench, from a point of vantage on the steps, called shame upon him and
abused him roundly for a cowardly assassin to assail a poor sufferer who
could hardly stand upright.

"Po' Cap de Dieu!" swore Castelroux at my elbow. "Saw you ever such an
ado? What has chanced?"

But I never stayed to answer him. Unless I acted quickly blood would
assuredly be shed. I was the one man who could explain matters, and it
was a mercy for Lesperon that I should have been at hand in the hour of
his meeting that fire-eater Marsac. I forgot the circumstances in which
I stood to Castelroux; I forgot everything but the imminent necessity
that I should intervene. Some seven feet below our window was the roof
of the porch; from that to the ground it might be some eight feet more.
Before my Gascon captain knew what I was about, I had swung myself down
from the window on to the projecting porch. A second later, I created
a diversion by landing in the midst of the courtyard fray, with the
alarmed Castelroux--who imagined that I was escaping--following by the
same unusual road, and shouting as he came "Monsieur de Lesperon!
Hi! Monsieur de Lesperon! Mordieu! Remember your parole, Monsieur de
Lesperon!"

Nothing could have been better calculated to stem Marsac's fury; nothing
could have so predisposed him to lend an ear to what I had to say, for
it was very evident that Caste