Scarce had the words fallen from my lips when I saw in the faces of Montmédy and St. Auban and half a dozen others the evidence of their rashness.     

       “So!” cried St. Auban in a voice that shook with rage. “That was your object, eh? That you had fallen low, Master de Luynes, I knew, but I dreamt not that in your fall you had come so low as this.”      

       “You dare?”      

       “Pardieu! I dare more, Monsieur; I dare tell you—you, Gaston de Luynes, spy and bravo of the Cardinal—that your object shall be defeated. That, as God lives, this duel shall still be fought—by me instead of Canaples.”      

       “And I tell you, sir, that as God lives it shall not,” I answered with a vehemence not a whit less than his own. “To you and to what other fools may think to follow in your footsteps, I say this: that not to-night nor to-morrow nor the next day shall that duel be fought. Cowards and poltroons you are, who seek to murder a beardless boy who has injured none of you! But, by my soul! every man who sends a challenge to that boy will I at once seek out and deal with as I have dealt with Eugène de Canaples. Let those who are eager to try another world make the attempt. Adieu, Messieurs!”      

       And with a flourish of my sodden beaver, I turned and left them before they had recovered from the vehemence of my words.     

  

       CHAPTER IV. FAIR RESCUERS     

       Like the calm of the heavens when pregnant with thunder was the calm of that crowd. And as brief it was; for scarce had I taken a dozen steps when       my ears were assailed by a rumble of angry voices and a rush of feet. One glance over my shoulder, one second's hesitation whether I should stay and beard them, then the thought of Andrea de Mancini and of what would befall him did this canaille vent its wrath upon me decided my course and sent me hotfoot down the Rue Monarque. Howling and bellowing that rabble followed in my wake, stumbling over one another in their indecent haste to reach me.     

       But I was fleet of foot, and behind me there was that that would lend wings to the most deliberate, so that when I turned into the open space       

 Prev. P 20/166 next