But Monsieur looked back again at the dead lad, and then at his son and at me, and came with us heavy of countenance.

On the stones before us lay a trail of blood-drops.

“Now, that is where Huguet ran with his wounded arm,” I said to M. Etienne.

“Aye, and if we did not know the way home we could find it by this red track.”

But the trail did not reach the door; for when we turned into the little street where the arch is, where I had waited for Martin, as we turned the familiar corner under the walls of the house itself, we came suddenly on the body of a man.  Monsieur ran forward with a cry, for it was the squire Huguet.

He wore a leather jerkin lined with steel rings, mail as stout as any forged.  Some one had stabbed once and again at the coat without avail, and had then torn it open and stabbed his defenceless breast.  Though we had killed two of their men, they had rained blows enough on this man of ours to kill twenty.

Monsieur knelt on the ground beside him, but he was quite cold.

“The man who fled when we charged them must have lurked about,” I said.  “Huguet’s sword-arm was useless; he could not defend himself.”

“Or else he fainted from his wound, he bled so,” M. Etienne answered.  “And one of those who fled last came upon him helpless and did this.”

“Why didn’t I follow him instead of sitting down, a John o’dreams?” I cried.  “But I was thinking of you and Monsieur; I forgot Huguet.”

“I forgot him, too,” Monsieur sorrowed.  “Shame to me; he would not have forgotten me.”

“Monsieur,” his son said, “it was no negligence of yours.  You could have saved him only by following when he ran.  And that was impossible.”

“In sight of the door,” Monsieur said sadly.  “In sight of his own door.”

We held silent.  Monsieur got soberly to his feet.

“I never lost a better man.”

“Monsieur,” I cried, “he asks no better epitaph.  If you will say that of me when I die, I shall not have lived in vain.”

He smiled at the outburst, but I did not care; if he would only smile, I was content it should be at me.

“Nay, Felix,” he said.  “I hope it will not be I who compose your epitaph.  Come, we must get to the house and send after poor Huguet.”

“Felix and I will carry him,” M. Etienne said, and we lifted him between us—­no easy task, for he was a heavy fellow.  But it was little enough to do for him.

We bore him along slowly, Monsieur striding ahead.  But of a sudden he turned back to us, laying quick fingers on the poor torn breast.

“What is it, Monsieur?” cried his son.

“My papers.”

We set him down, and the three of us examined him from top to toe, stripping off his steel coat, pulling apart his blood-clotted linen, prying into his very boots.  But no papers revealed themselves.

“What were they, Monsieur?”