their very clothes, and go home naked through the streets; for the streets of Paris saw strange things in those days. But life? Well, even that they had seen men stake in effect, once, twice, a hundred times; but never in so many words, never on a wager as novel as this. So with an amazement which no duel, fought as was the custom in that day, three to three, or six to six, would have evoked, they gathered round the little table under the candles and waited for the issue. The young man shivered. Then, "I accept," he said slowly. In effect he was desperate, driven to his last straits. He had lost his all, the all of a young man sent up to Paris to make his fortune,[Pg 58] with a horse, his sword, and a bag of crowns—the latter saved for him by a father's stern frugality, a mother's tender self-denial. A week ago he had never seen a game of chance. Then he had seen; the dice had fallen in his way, the devil of play, cursed legacy of some long-forgotten ancestor, had awoke within him, and this was the end. "I accept," he said slowly. [Pg 58] His opponent, still with his secretive smile, took up the caster. But a short, sturdy man, who was standing at his elbow, and who wore the colours of the Duke of Guise, intervened. "No, Michel," he said, with a good-natured glance at the young player. "Let the lad choose his bones, and throw first or last as he pleases." "Right," said Berthaud, yawning. "It is no matter. My star is in the ascendant to-night. He will not win." The young man took up the box, shook it, hesitated, swallowed, and threw seven! Berthaud threw carelessly—seven! Some shouted, some drew a deep breath, or whispered an oath. These wild spirits, who had faced death often in one form or another, were still children, and still in a new thing found a new pleasure. "Your star may be in the ascendant," the man muttered who had intervened before, "but it—well, it twinkles, Michel." Berthaud did not answer. The young man[Pg 59] made him a sign to throw. He threw again—eight. [Pg 59] The young man threw with a hand that scarcely dared to let the dice go. Seven! He had lost.
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