“Hold me, for heaven’s sake, hold me!”

“I have you quite secure.”

“Then pull me up!”

“Not so fast, captain.  You can talk very well where you are.”

“Let me up, sir, let me up!”

“All in good time.  I fear that it is inconvenient to you to talk with your heels in the air.”

“Ah, you would murder me!”

“On the contrary, I am going to pull you up.”

“Heaven bless you!”

“But only on conditions.”

“Oh, they are granted!  I am slipping!”

“You will leave this house—­you and your men.  You will not trouble this old man or this young girl any further.  Do you promise?”

“Oh yes; we shall go.”

“Word of honour?”

“Certainly.  Only pull me up!”

“Not so fast.  It may be easier to talk to you like this.  I do not know how the laws are over here.  Maybe this sort of thing is not permitted.  You will promise me that I shall have no trouble over the matter.”

“None, none.  Only pull me up!”

“Very good.  Come along!”

He dragged at the dragoon’s leg while the other gripped his way up the balustrade until, amid a buzz of congratulation from the crowd, he tumbled all in a heap over the rail on to the balcony, where he lay for a few moments as he had fallen.  Then staggering to his feet, without a glance at his opponent, he rushed, with a bellow of rage, through the open window.

While this little drama had been enacted overhead, the young guardsman had shaken off his first stupor of amazement, and had pushed his way through the crowd with such vigour that he and his companion had nearly reached the bottom of the steps.  The uniform of the king’s guard was in itself a passport anywhere, and the face of old Catinat was so well known in the district that everyone drew back to clear a path for him towards his house.  The door was flung open for them, and an old servant stood wringing his hands in the dark passage.

“Oh, master!  Oh, master!” he cried.

“Such doings, such infamy!  They will murder him!”

“Whom, then?”

“This brave monsieur from America.  Oh, my God, hark to them now!”

As he spoke, a clatter and shouting which had burst out again upstairs ended suddenly in a tremendous crash, with volleys of oaths and a prolonged bumping and smashing, which shook the old house to its foundations.  The soldier and the Huguenot rushed swiftly up the first flight of stairs, and were about to ascend the second one, from the head of which the uproar seemed to proceed, when a great eight-day clock came hurtling down, springing four steps at a time, and ending with a leap across the landing and a crash against the wall, which left it a shattered heap of metal wheels and wooden splinters.  An instant afterwards four men, so locked together that they formed but one rolling bundle, came thudding down amid a debris