“I am going to tell you what this arrangement is, all the same, so that I shall have nothing left to reproach myself for.”

“Hold your tongue,” said Borromee; “hold your tongue; it will be useless.”

“Listen,” said Chicot; “it is to satisfy my own conscience.  I have no wish to shed your blood, you understand, and I don’t want to kill you until I am driven to extremes.”

“Kill me, kill me, I say, if you can!” exclaimed Borromee, exasperated.

“No, no; I have already once in my life killed another such swordsman as you are; I will even say a better swordsman than you.  Pardieu! you know him; he, too, was one of De Guise’s retainers—­a lawyer, too.”

“Ah!  Nicolas David!” said Borromee, terrified at the incident, and again placing himself on the defensive.

“Exactly so.”

“It was you who killed him?”

“Oh! yes, with a pretty little thrust which I will presently show you, if you decline the arrangement I propose.”

“Well, let me hear what the arrangement is.”

“You will pass from the Duc de Guise’s service to that of the king, without, however, quitting that of the duc.”

“In other words, that I should become a spy like yourself?”

“No, for there will be a difference; I am not paid, but you will be.  You will begin by showing me the Duc de Guise’s letter to Madame la Duchesse de Montpensier; you will let me take a copy of it, and I will leave you quiet until another occasion.  Well, am I not considerate?”—­“Here,” said Borromee, “is my answer.”

Borromee’s reply was “un coupe sur les armes,” so rapidly dealt that the point of his sword slightly touched Chicot’s shoulder.

“Well, well,” said Chicot, “I see I must positively show you Nicolas David’s thrust.  It is very simple and pretty.”

And Chicot, who had up to that moment been acting on the defensive, made one step forward and attacked in his turn.

“This is the thrust,” said Chicot; “I make a feint in quartrebasse.”

And he did so; Borromee parried by giving way; but, after this first step backward he was obliged to stop, as he found that he was close to the partition.

“Good! precisely so; you parry in a circle; that’s wrong, for my wrist is stronger than yours.  I catch your sword in mine, thus.  I return to the attack by a tierce haute, I fall upon you, so, and you are hit, or, rather, you are a dead man!”

In fact, the thrust had followed, or rather had accompanied, the demonstration, and the slender rapier, penetrating Borromee’s chest, had glided like a needle completely through him, penetrating deeply, and with a dull, heavy sound, the wooden partition behind him.

Borromee flung out his arms, letting his sword fall to the ground; his eyes became fixed and injected with blood, his mouth opened wide, his lips were stained with a red-colored foam, his head fell on his shoulder with a sigh, which sounded like a death-rattle; then his limbs refused their support, and his body as it sunk forward enlarged the aperture of the wound, but could not free itself from the partition, supported as it was by Chicot’s terrible wrist, so that the miserable wretch, like a gigantic insect, remained fastened to the wall, which his feet kicked convulsively.