heavily, like a man overburdened. "You have been living ever since by
the reputation which that accident gave you. Let us see if you can die
by it, Monsieur de Bardelys." And, leaning forward, he struck me on
the breast, so suddenly and so powerfully--for he was a man of abnormal
strength--that I must have fallen but that La Fosse caught me in his
arms.

"Kill him!" lisped the classic-minded fool. "Play Theseus to this bull
of Marathon."

Chatellerault stood back, his hands on his hips, his head inclined
towards his right shoulder, and an insolent leer of expectancy upon his
face.

"Will that resolve you?" he sneered.

"I will meet you," I answered, when I had recovered breath. "But I swear
that I shall not help you to escape the headsman."

He laughed harshly.

"Do I not know it?" he mocked. "How shall killing you help me to escape?
Come, messieurs, sortons. At once!"

"Sor," I answered shortly; and thereupon we crowded from the room, and
went pele-mele down the passage to the courtyard at the back.

CHAPTER XVI. SWORDS!

La Fosse led the way with me, his arm through mine, swearing that
he would be my second. He had such a stomach for a fight, had this
irresponsible, irrepressible rhymester, that it mounted to the heights
of passion with him, and when I mentioned, in answer to a hint dropped
in connection with the edict, that I had the King's sanction for this
combat, he was nearly mad with joy.

"Blood of La Fosse!" was his oath. "The honour to stand by you shall be
mine, my Bardelys! You owe it me, for am I not in part to blame for
all this ado? Nay, you'll not deny me. That gentleman yonder, with
the wild-cat moustaches and a name like a Gascon oath--that cousin of
Mironsac's, I mean--has the flair of a fight in his nostrils, and a
craving to be in it. But you'll grant me the honour, will you not?
Pardieu! It will earn me a place in history."

"Or the graveyard," quoth I, by way of cooling his ardour.

"Peste! What an augury!" Then, with a laugh: "But," he added, indicating
Saint-Eustache, "that long, lean saint--I forget of what he is
patron--hardly wears a murderous air."

To win peace from him, I promised that he should stand by me. But the
favour lost much of its value in his eyes when presently I added that
I did not wish the seconds to engage, since the matter was of so very
personal a character.

Mironsac and Castelroux, assisted by Saint-Eustache, closed the heavy
portecochere, an