“D’Herouville, you black scoundrel, why do you come so slowly?” challenged the Chevalier.  “The single window is too small for a man to crawl through.  Think you to pass this way?”

“I am going to try!” cried D’Herouville, triumphantly.  How well everything had turned out.  “Now, men, stand back a little; there will be some sword play.”

“I’ll engage the four of you in the open, if madame is permitted to go free.”  The Chevalier urged, this simply to gain time.  He knew what the answer would be.

D’Herouville appealed to Corporal Fremin.  “Is that not an excellent joke, my Corporal?”

“Eye of the bull, yes!”

“Ho!  D’Herouville, wait for me!”

Madame sprang to her feet screaming:  “Vicomte, save us!” She flew to the door.

“Back, Madame,” warned the Chevalier, “or you will have me killed.”  With his left arm he barred the door.

“Have patience, sweet bird, whom I shall soon take to an eery nest.  To be sure I shall save you!” From behind a clumb of hazel the vicomte came forth, a sword in his hand.

It was the tone, not the words, which enveloped madame’s heart in a film of ice.  One way or the other, it did not matter, she was lost.

“Guard the Chevalier, men!” cried D’Herouville, wheeling.  “We shall wipe out all bad debts while we are at it.  D’Halluys, look to yourself!”

“You fat head!” laughed the vicomte, parrying in a circle.  “Did I not tell you that I should kill you?”

Had he been alone the Chevalier would have rushed his opponents.  God help madame when he fell, for he could not kill all these men; sooner or later he must fall.  The men made no attempt to engage him.  They merely held ready in case he should make a rush.

With the fury of a maddened bull, D’Herouville engaged the vicomte.  He was the vicomte’s equal in all save generalship.  The vicomte loved, next to madame, the game of fence, and he loved it so thoroughly that his coolness never fell below the level of his superb courage.  Physically, there was scarce a hair’s difference in the weight of the two men.  But a parried stroke, or a nicely balked assault, stirred D’Herouville’s heat; if repeated the blood surged into his head, and he was often like to throw caution to the winds.  Once his point scratched the vicomte’s jaw.

“Very good,” the vicomte admitted, lunging in flanconade.  His blade grated harshly against D’Herouville’s hilt.  It was close work.

They disengaged.  D’Herouville’s weapon flashed in a circle.  The vicomte’s parry was so fine that his own blade lay flat against his side.

“Count, you would be wonderful if you could keep cool that fat head of yours.  That is as close as I ever expect to come and pull out.”

Presently the end came.  D’Herouville feinted and thrust for the throat.  Quick as a wind-driven shadow the vicomte dropped on a knee; his blade taking an acute angle, glided under D’Herouville’s arm and slid noiselessly into the broad chest of his opponent, who opened his mouth as if to speak, gasped, stumbled and fell upon his face, dead.  The vicomte sank his blade into the earth to cleanse it.