“Felix, you said Huguet had run for aid?”

“Yes, Monsieur; Vigo should have been here before now,” I answered, remembering Vigo’s promptitude yesterday.

“Every one was asleep; he has been hammering this half-hour to get in,” M. Etienne said easily.

But Monsieur asked of me: 

“Was he much hurt, Felix?”

“No; I am sure not, Monsieur.  He was run through the arm; I am sure he was not hurt otherwise.”

We came to where the two slain men lay across the way.  M. Etienne exclaimed: 

“If you do not hold your life dear, you sell it dear, Monsieur!  How many of the rascals were there?”

“It was hard to tell in the dark.  Five, I think.”

“Now, Monsieur, how came you to be in this place in the dark?”

“Why, what to do, Etienne?  I came in at the gate just after midnight.  I could not leave St. Denis earlier, and night is my time to enter Paris.  The inns were shut—­”

“But some friend near the gate?  Tarigny would have sheltered you.”

“Aye, and got into trouble for it, had it leaked out to the Sixteen.”

“Tarigny is no craven.”

“But neither am I,” said Monsieur, smiling.

“Oh, I give you up!  Go your ways.  But I will not come to save you next time.”

“No, lad; you will be at my side hereafter.”

M. Etienne laughed and said no more.

“But in truth,” Monsieur added, “I did not expect waylaying.  If these fellows watched by the gate, they hid cleverly.  I never saw a finger-tip of them till they sprang upon us by the corner here, when we were almost home.”

M. Etienne bent over and turned face up the man whom Monsieur had run through the heart.  He was an ugly enough fellow, one eye entirely closed by a great scar that ran from his forehead nearly to his grizzled mustache.

“This is Bernet le Borgne,” he said.  “Have you encountered him before, Monsieur?  He was a soldier under Guise once, they say, but he has done naught but hang about Paris taverns this many a year.  We used to wonder how he lived; we knew he did somebody’s dirty work.  Clisson employed him once, so I know something of him.  With his one eye he could fence better than most folks with two.  My congratulations to you, Monsieur.”

But Monsieur, not heeding, was bending over the other man.

“Your acquaintance is wider than mine.  Do you know this one?”

M. Etienne shook his head over this other man, who lay face up, staring with wide dark eyes into the sky.  His hair curled in little rings about his forehead, and his cheeks were smooth; he looked no older than I.

“He dashed at me the first of all,” Monsieur said in a low voice.  “I ran him through before the others came up.  Mordieu!  I am glad it was dark.  A boy like that!”

“He had good mettle to run up first,” M. Etienne said.  “And it is no disgrace to fall to your sword, Monsieur.  Come, let us go.”