"Félix, here is work for us. As I was saying, M. Marceau, your decree is
most offensive to the general-duke, and therefore, since he is my
particular enemy, most pleasing to me. A beautiful night, is it not,
sir? I wish you a delightful walk home."
He seized me by the hand, and we dashed up the street.
At the corner the noise of a fray came faintly but plainly to our ears.
M. le Comte without hesitation plunged down a lane in the direction of
the sound.
"I said I wanted no more fighting to-night, but two against a mob! We
know how it feels."
The clash of steel on steel grew ever louder, and as we wheeled around a
jutting garden wall we came full upon the combatants.
"A rescue, a rescue!" cried M. Étienne. "Shout, Félix! Montjoie St.
Denis! A rescue, a rescue!"
We charged down the street, drawing our swords and shouting at the top
of our lungs.
It was too dark to see much save a mass of struggling figures, with
every now and then, as the steel hit, a point of light flashing out, to
fade and appear again like a brilliant glow-worm. We could scarce tell
which were the attackers, which the two comrades we had come to save.
But if we could not make them out, neither could they us. We shouted as
boldly as if we had been a company, and in the clatter of their heels on
the stones they could not count our feet. They knew not how many
followers the darkness held. The group parted. Two men remained in hot
combat close under the left wall. Across the way one sturdy fighter held
off two, while a sixth man, crying on his mates to follow, fled down the
lane.
M. Étienne knew now what he was about, and at once took sides with the
solitary fencer. The combat being made equal, I started in pursuit of
the flying figure. I had run but a few yards, however, when I tripped
and fell prostrate over the body of a man. I was up in a moment, feeling
him to find out if he were dead; my hands over his heart dipped into a
pool of something wet and warm like new milk. I wiped them on his sleeve
as best I could, and hastily groped about for his sword. He did not need
it now, and I did.
When I rose with it my quarry was swallowed up in the shadows. M.
Étienne, whose light clothing made a distinguishable spot in the gloom,
had driven his opponent, or his opponent had driven him, some rods up
the lane the way we had come. I stood perplexed, not knowing where to
busy myself. M. Étienne's side I could not reach past the two duels; and
of the four men near me, I could by no means tell, as they circled
about and about, which were my chosen allies. They were all sombrely
clad, their faces blurred in the darkness. When one made a clever pass,
I knew not whether to rejoice or despair. But at length I picked out one
who fenced, though valiantly enough, yet with greater effort than the
rest; and I deemed that this had been the hardest pressed of all and
must certainly be one of the attacked and the one most deserving of
succour. He was plainly losing ground. I darted to his side just as his
foe ran him through the arm.
The assailant pulled his blade free and darted back against the wall to
face the two of us. But the sword of the wounded man fell from his loose
fingers.
"I'm out of it," he cried to me; "I go for aid." And as his late
combatant sprang forward to engage me, I heard him running off,
stumbling where I had.
There had been little light toward the last in the court of the house in
the Rue Coupejarrets, and less under the windows of the Hôtel de
Lorraine; but here was none at all, I had to use my sword solely by the
feel of his against it, and I underwent chilling qualms lest presently,
without in the least knowing how it got there, I should find his point
sticking out of my back. I could hardly believe he was not hitting me; I
began to prickle in half a dozen places, and knew not whether the stings
were real or imaginary. But one was not imaginary; my shoulder which
Lucas had pinked and the doctor bandaged was throbbing painfully. I
fancied that in my earlier combat the wound had opened again and that I
was bleeding to death; and the fear shook me. I lunged wildly, and I
had been sent to my account in short order had not at this moment one of
the other pair near us, as it afterward appeared, driven his weapon
square through his vis-à-vis's breast.
"I am done for. Run who can!" he cried as he fell. The sword snapped in
two against the paving-stones; he rolled over and lay still, his face in
the dirt.
My encounterer, with a shout to his single remaining comrade, made off
down the lane. On my part, I was very willing to let him depart in
peace.
The clash of swords up the lane had ceased at the stricken man's cry,
and out of the gloom came the sound of footfalls fainter and fainter. I
deemed that the battle was over.
The champion came toward me, three white patches visible for his face
and hands; the rest of him but darkness moving in darkness. He held a
sword rifled from the enemy, and advanced on me hesitatingly, not sure
whether friend or foe remained to him. I felt that an explanation was
due from me, but in my ignorance as to who he was and who his foes were,
and why they had been fighting him and why we had been fighting them, I
stood for a moment confused. It is hard to open conversation with a
shadow.
He spoke first, in a voice husky from his exertion:
"Who are you?"
"A friend," I said. "My master and I saw two men fighting four--we came
to help the weaker side. Your friend was hurt, but he got away safe to
fetch aid."