“You will not bear me malice for that poltroon’s work, Etienne?” Gervais asked, more humbly than I ever thought to hear him speak.  “That was a foul cut, but it was no fault of mine.  I am no blackguard; I fight fair.  I will kill the knave, if you like.”

“You are ungrateful, Gervais; he saved you when you needed saving,” Yeux-gris laughed.  “Faith! let him live.  I forgive him.  You will pay me for my hurt by yielding me Felix.”

Gervais looked at me.  While we had worked side by side over Yeux-gris he seemed to have forgotten that he was my enemy.  But now all the old suspicion and dislike came into his face again.  However, he answered: 

“Aye, you would have been the victor had it not been for Pontou.  You shall do what you like with your boy.  I promise you that.”

“Now that is well said, Gervais,” returned Yeux-gris, rising, and picking up his sword, which he sheathed.  “That is very well said.  For if you did not feel like promising it, why, I should have to begin over again with my left hand.”

“Oh, I give you the boy,” Gervais repeated rather sullenly, turning away to pour himself some wine.

I could not but wonder at Yeux-gris, at his gaiety and his steadfastness.  He had hardly looked grave through the whole affair; he had fought with a smile on his lips and had taken a cruel wound with a laugh.  Withal, he had been the constant champion of my innocence, even to drawing his sword on his cousin for me.  Now, with his bloody arm in its sling, he was as debonair and careless as ever.  I had been stupid enough to imagine the big Gervais the leader of the two, and I found myself mistaken.  I dropped on my knee and kissed my saviour’s hand in all gratitude.

“Aha,” said Yeux-gris, “what think you now of being my valet?”

Verily, I was hard pushed.

“Monsieur,” I said, “I owe you much more than I can ever pay.  If you were any man’s enemy but my duke’s, I would serve you on my knees.  But I was born on the duke’s land and I cannot be disloyal.  You may kill me yourself, if you like.”

“No,” he answered gravely, “that is not my metier.”

Gervais laughed.

“Make me that offer, and I accept.”

Yeux-gris turned to him with that little hauteur he assumed occasionally.

“You are helpless, my cousin.  You have passed your word.”

“Aye.  I leave him to you.”

His sullen eyes told me it was no new-born tenderness for me that prompted his surrender.  Nor had I, truth to tell, any great faith in the sacredness of his word.  Yet I believed he would let me be.  For it was borne in upon me that, despite his passion and temper, he had no wish to quarrel with Yeux-gris.  Whether at bottom he loved him or in some way dreaded him, I could not tell; but of this my fear-sharpened wits were sure:  he had no desire to press an open breach.  He was honestly ashamed of his henchman’s low deed; yet even before that his judgment had disliked the quarrel.  Else why had he struck me with the hilt of the sword?