M. Etienne wheeled round to me.

“Felix, here is work for us.  As I was saying, M. Marceau, your decree is most offensive to the general-duke, and therefore, since he is my particular enemy, most pleasing to me.  A beautiful night, is it not, sir?  I wish you a delightful walk home.”

He seized me by the hand, and we dashed up the street.

At the corner the noise of a fray came faintly but plainly to our ears.  M. le Comte without hesitation plunged down a lane in the direction of the sound.

“I said I wanted no more fighting to-night, but two against a mob!  We know how it feels.”

The clash of steel on steel grew ever louder, and as we wheeled around a jutting garden wall we came full upon the combatants.

“A rescue, a rescue!” cried M. Etienne.  “Shout, Felix!  Montjoie St. Denis!  A rescue, a rescue!”

We charged down the street, drawing our swords and shouting at the top of our lungs.

It was too dark to see much save a mass of struggling figures, with every now and then, as the steel hit, a point of light flashing out, to fade and appear again like a brilliant glow-worm.  We could scarce tell which were the attackers, which the two comrades we had come to save.

But if we could not make them out, neither could they us.  We shouted as boldly as if we had been a company, and in the clatter of their heels on the stones they could not count our feet.  They knew not how many followers the darkness held.  The group parted.  Two men remained in hot combat close under the left wall.  Across the way one sturdy fighter held off two, while a sixth man, crying on his mates to follow, fled down the lane.

M. Etienne knew now what he was about, and at once took sides with the solitary fencer.  The combat being made equal, I started in pursuit of the flying figure.  I had run but a few yards, however, when I tripped and fell prostrate over the body of a man.  I was up in a moment, feeling him to find out if he were dead; my hands over his heart dipped into a pool of something wet and warm like new milk.  I wiped them on his sleeve as best I could, and hastily groped about for his sword.  He did not need it now, and I did.

When I rose with it my quarry was swallowed up in the shadows.  M. Etienne, whose light clothing made a distinguishable spot in the gloom, had driven his opponent, or his opponent had driven him, some rods up the lane the way we had come.  I stood perplexed, not knowing where to busy myself.  M. Etienne’s side I could not reach past the two duels; and of the four men near me, I could by no means tell, as they circled about and about, which were my chosen allies.  They were all sombrely clad, their faces blurred in the darkness.  When one made a clever pass, I knew not whether to rejoice or despair.  But at length I picked out one who fenced, though valiantly enough, yet with greater effort than the rest; and I deemed that this had been the hardest pressed of all and must certainly be one of the attacked and the one most deserving of succour.  He was plainly losing ground.  I darted to his side just as his foe ran him through the arm.