This was not combat; it was butchery.  M. Etienne, with a little moan, lifted his eyes for the first time from his assailant to the turret window.  In the same instant I felt the door behind us give.  Throwing my whole weight upon it, I seized M. Etienne and pulled him over the threshold.  Some one inside slammed the door to, just as the Spaniard hurled himself against it.

XX

"On guard, monsieur."

We found ourselves in a narrow panelled passageway, lighted by a flickering oil-lamp pendent from a bracket.  Confronting us was our preserver—­a little old lady in black velvet, leaning back in chuckling triumph against the shot bolts.

She was very small and very old.  Her figure was bent and shrunken, a pitiful little bag of bones in a rich dress; her hair was as white as her ruff; her skin as yellow and dry as parchment, furrowed with a thousand wrinkles; but her black eyes sparkled like a girl’s.

“I did not mean to let my nightingale’s throat be slit,” she cried in a shrill voice quavering like a young child’s.  “I have listened to your singing many a night, monsieur; I was glad to-night to find the nightingale back again.  When I saw that crew rush at you, I said I would save you if only you would put your back to my door.  Monsieur, you are a young man of intelligence.”

“I am a young man of amazing good fortune, madame,” M. Etienne replied, with his handsomest bow, sheathing his wet blade.  “I owe you a debt of gratitude which is ill repaid in the base coin of bringing trouble to this house.”

“Not at all—­not at all!” she protested with animation.  “No one is likely to molest this house.  It is the dwelling of M. Ferou.”

“Of the Sixteen?”

“Of the Sixteen,” she nodded, her shrewd face agleam with mischief.  “In truth, if my son were within, you were little likely to find harbourage here.  But, as it is, he and his wife are supping with his Grace of Lyons.  And the servants are one and all gone to mass, leaving madame grand’mere to shift for herself.  No, no, my good friends; you may knock till you drop, but you won’t get in.”

The attacking party was indeed hammering energetically on the door, shouting to us to open, to deny them at our peril.  The eyes of the old lady glittered with new delight at every rap.

“I fancy they will think twice before they batter down M. Ferou’s door!  Ma foi!  I fancy they are a little mystified at finding you sanctuaried in this house.  Was it not my Lord Mayenne’s jackal, Francois de Brie?”

“Yes; and Marc Latour.”

“I thought I knew them,” she cried in evident pride at her sharpness.  “It was dark, and they were masked, and my eyes are old, but I knew them!  And which of the ladies is it?”

He could do no less than answer his saviour.

“Ah, well,” she said, with a little sigh, “I too once—­but that is a long time ago.”  Then her eyes twinkled again; I trow she was not much given to sighing.  “That is a long time ago,” she repeated briskly, “and now they think I am too old to do aught but tell my beads and wait for death.  But I like to have a hand in the game.”