“There was a certain Raymond de Neville who played at dice with another whom I could name.  Neville said that the other cheated, but he was a great swordsman while Neville was but an indifferent fencer, and the other slew him.  Yet, they say Neville’s charges were true.  Shall I name that man, Boucher?”

Boucher, livid with rage, sprang at him.

“Mummer!” he cried.  “You know too much.  I’ll close your mouth forever!”

Now it seemed to Boucher that a very demon of the sword stood before him.  His own fierce rush was met and he was driven back.  The ghosts of the boy, Gaston Lafitte, of the sick man Raoul de Bassempierre, and of the indifferent swordsman, Raymond de Neville who had been cheated at cards, came back, and they helped Willet wield his weapon.  His figure broadened and grew.  His blade was no longer of steel, it was a strip of lightning that played around the body and face of the dazzled bravo.  It was verily true that the hands of four men grasped the hilt, the ghosts of the three whom he had murdered long ago, and Willet who stood there in the flesh before him.

A reluctant buzz of admiration ran through the crowd.  Many of them had come from Paris, but they had never seen such swordsmanship before.  Whoever the hunter might be they saw that he was the master swordsman of them all.  They addressed low cries of warning to Boucher:  “Have a care!” “Have a care!” “Save your strength!” they said.  But de Galisonniere stood, tight-lipped and silent.  Nor did Robert and Tayoga feel the need of saying anything to their champion.

Now Boucher felt for the first time in his life that he had met the better man.  The great duelist who had ruffled it so grandly through the inns and streets of Paris looked with growing terror into the stern, accusing eyes that confronted him.  But he did not always see Willet.  It was the ghosts of the boy, Gaston Lafitte, of the sick man Raoul de Bassempierre and of the indifferent swordsman, Raymond de Neville, that guided the hunter’s blade, and his forehead became cold and wet with perspiration.

De Galisonniere had moved in the crowd, until he stood with Robert and Tayoga.  He was perhaps the only one of the honnetes gens in the garden, and while he was a Frenchman, first, last and all the time, he knew who Boucher was and what he represented, he understood the reason why Robert had been drawn into the garden and he was willing to see the punishment of the man who was to have been the sanguinary instrument of the plot.

“A miracle will defeat the best of plans,” he said to de Courcelles.

“What do you mean, de Galisonniere?” asked de Courcelles with a show of effrontery.

“That an unknown hunter should prove himself a better swordsman than your great duelist and bravo, Boucher.”

“Why do you call him my duelist and bravo, de Galisonniere?”

“I understand that you brought young Lennox into the garden, apparently his warm friend on the way, and then when he was here, stood aside.”