arge of lancers?"

"Never!" said both of the ladies at once.

"It is a very grand sight, I assure you. Fancy, ladies, a legion of
demons galloping along upon their horses, thrusting to the right and
left with long pikes, whose steel points are eighteen inches long. That
is a charge of lancers. I beg you to believe that I had shown before
this the mettle there was in me, but I will not conceal from you that at
this moment I shared with the crowd the impression which the coming of
these gentlemen made. I had only time to jump over the sidewalk and
to dart up a staircase which ran on the outside of a house, every door
being closed. I never shall forget the face of one of those men who
thrust the point of a lance at me, long enough to pierce through six men
at once. I admit that I felt excited then! The jinn having passed--"

"The--what?" asked Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who was not familiar with
Eastern terms.

"I beg a thousand pardons, it was a poetical reminiscence. The lancers,
having rushed through the boulevard like an avalanche, a laggard rider,
a hundred steps behind the others, galloped proudly by, erect in
his stirrups and flourishing his sword. Suddenly the report of a gun
resounded, the lancer reeled backward, then forward, and finally fell
upon his horse's neck; a moment later he turned in his saddle and lay
stretched upon the ground, his foot caught in the stirrup; the horse,
still galloping, dragged the man and the lance, which was fastened to
his arm by a leather band."

"How horrible!" said Clemence, clasping her hands.

Marillac, much pleased with the effect of his narration, leaned back in
his chair and continued his tale with his usual assurance.

"I looked to the neighboring roofs to discover whence came this shot;
as I was glancing to the right and left I saw smoke issuing through the
blinds of the room on the second floor, which had been closed at the
approach of the lancers.

"'Good God!' I exclaimed; 'it must be this handsome old man in the
mouse-colored silk dressing-gown who amuses himself by firing upon the
lancers, as if they were rabbits in a warren!'

"Just then the blinds were opened, and the strange fellow with the
unruffled countenance leaned out and gazed with a smiling face in the
direction the horse was taking, dragging his master's body after him.
The patriarch had killed his man between two sips of his coffee."

"And that is the cowardly way in which members of the royal g