Count Hannibal’s eyes sparkled with joy.  “Old dog!” he cried—­and he held his hand to the veteran, who brushed it reverently with his lips—­“we will go together then!  Who touches my brother, touches Tavannes!”

“Touches Tavannes!” Badelon cried, the glow of battle lighting his bloodshot eyes.  He rose to his feet.  “Touches Tavannes!  You mind at Jarnac—­”

“Ah!  At Jarnac!”

“When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot from yours, my lord?”

“Not a foot!”

“And at Dreux,” the old man continued with a proud, elated gesture, “when we rode down the German pikemen—­they were grass before us, leaves on the wind, thistledown—­was it not I who covered your bridle hand, and swerved not in the melee?”

“It was!  It was!”

“And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the Spaniard—­it was his day, you remember, and cost us dear—­”

“Ay, I was young then,” Tavannes cried in turn, his eyes glistening.  “St. Quentin!  It was the tenth of August.  And you were new with me, and seized my rein—­”

“And we rode off together, my lord—­of the last, of the last, as God sees me!  And striking as we went, so that they left us for easier game.”

“It was so, good sword!  I remember it as if it had been yesterday!”

“And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the old Spanish wars, that was most like a joust of all the pitched fields I ever saw—­at Cerisoles, where I caught your horse?  You mind me?  It was in the shock when we broke Guasto’s line—­”

“At Cerisoles?” Count Hannibal muttered slowly.  “Why, man, I—­”

“I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh?  You remember, my lord?  And at Landriano, where Leyva turned the tables on us again.”

Count Hannibal stared.  “Landriano?” he muttered bluntly. “’Twas in ’29, forty years ago and more!  My father, indeed—­”

“And at Rome—­at Rome, my lord? Mon Dieu! in the old days at Rome!  When the Spanish company scaled the wall—­Ruiz was first, I next—­was it not my foot you held?  And was it not I who dragged you up, while the devils of Swiss pressed us hard?  Ah, those were days, my lord!  I was young then, and you, my lord, young too, and handsome as the morning—­”

“You rave!” Tavannes cried, finding his tongue at last.  “Rome?  You rave, old man!  Why, I was not born in those days.  My father even was a boy!  It was in ’27 you sacked it—­five-and-forty years ago!”

The old man passed his hands over his heated face, and, as a man roused suddenly from sleep looks, he looked round the room.  The light died out of his eyes—­as a light blown out in a room; his form seemed to shrink, even while the others gazed at him, and he sat down.

“No, I remember,” he muttered slowly.  “It was Prince Philibert of Chalons, my lord of Orange.”

“Dead these forty years!”

“Ay, dead these forty years!  All dead!” the old man whispered, gazing at his gnarled hand, and opening and shutting it by turns.  “And I grow childish!  ’Tis time, high time, I followed them!  It trembles now; but have no fear, my lord, this hand will not tremble then.  All dead!  Ay, all dead!”