We saw a glint in the gloom, monsieur’s bared sword.

“You will go neither one of you.  Hush!  If we show ourselves, there’ll be no duel to-day.”

We kept still, all three leaning over the banister, peering down to where the white tiles picked themselves out of the floor of the hall far beneath.  We could see them better than we could see one another.  All was silent.  Not so much as a rustle came up from below.  Suddenly Lucas made a step or two, as if to pass us.  M. Etienne wheeled about, raising his sword toward the spot where from his footfalls we supposed Lucas to be.

“You show an eagerness to get away from me, M. de Lorraine.”

“Not in the least, M. de Mar.  This alarm is but Felix’s poltroonery, yet it prompts me to go down and close the shutter.”

“On the contrary, you will go up with me.  Felix will close the shutter.”

They confronted each other, vague shapes in the darkness, each with drawn sword.  Then Lucas raised his in salute.

“As you will; so be some one sees to it.”

“Go, Felix.”

Lucas first, they mounted the last flight of stairs, and their footsteps passed along the corridor to the room at the back.  I, as I was ordered, set my face down the stairs.

They might mock me as they liked, but I could not get it out of my head that I had heard steps below.  Cautiously, with a thumping heart, I stole from stair to stair, pausing at the bottom of the flight.  I heard plainly the sound of moving above me, and of voices; but below not a whisper, not a creak.  It must have been my silly fears.  Resolved to choke them, I planted my feet boldly on the next flight, and descended humming, to prove my ease, the rollicky tune of Peyrot’s catch.  Suddenly, from not three feet off, came the soft singing: 

     Mirth, my love, and Folly dear—­

My knees knocked together, and the breath fluttered in my throat.  It seemed the darkness itself had given tongue.  Then came a low laugh and the muttered words: 

“Here we are, M. de Lorraine.  Are you ready?”

There was a stir of feet on the landing before me, behind the voice.  The house, then, was full of Lucas’s cutthroats, the first of them Peyrot.  In the height of my terror, I remembered that M. Etienne’s life, too, depended on my wits, and I kept them.  I whispered, for whispering voices are hard to tell apart: 

“Not yet.  The two of them are up there.  Keep quiet, and I’ll send the boy down.  When you’ve finished him, come up.”

“As you say, monsieur.  It is your job.”

I turned, scarce able to believe my luck, and, not daring to run, walked up-stairs again.  Prick my ears as I might, I heard no movement after me.  Actually, I had fooled Peyrot.  I had gone down to meet my death, and a tune had saved me.

When I reached the uppermost landing, I rushed along the passage and into the room, flinging the door shut, locking and bolting it.