oment and I should have been clear of the place and free to lie
by for a while--when, without warning, a scurry took place round me. The
crowd fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn a dozen of the
Cardinal's guards closed round me.

I had some acquaintance with the officer in command, and he saluted me
civilly.

'This is a bad business, M. de Berault,' he said. 'The man is dead they
tell me.'

'Neither dying nor dead,' I answered lightly. 'If that be all you may go
home again.'

'With you,' he replied, with a grin, 'certainly. And as it rains, the
sooner the better. I must ask you for your sword, I am afraid.'

'Take it,' I said, with the philosophy which never deserts me. 'But the
man will not die.'

'I hope that may avail you,' he answered in a tone I did not like. 'Left
wheel, my friends! To the Chatelet! March!'

'There are worse places,' I said, and resigned myself to fate. After
all, I had been in a prison before, and learned that only one jail lets
no prisoner escape.

But when I found that my friend's orders were to hand me over to the
watch, and that I was to be confined like any common jail-bird caught
cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my heart sank. If I
could get speech with the Cardinal, all would probably be well; but if
I failed in this, or if the case came before him in strange guise, or if
he were in a hard mood himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict
said, death!

And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not put himself to much trouble
to hearten me. 'What! again M. de Berault?' he said, raising his
eyebrows as he received me at the gate, and recognised me by the light
of the brazier which his men were just kindling outside. 'You are a very
bold man, or a very foolhardy one, to come here again. The old business,
I suppose?'

'Yes, but he is not dead,' I answered coolly. 'He has a trifle--a mere
scratch. It was behind the church of St Jacques.'

'He looked dead enough, my friend,' the guardsman interposed. He had not
yet left us.

'Bah!' I answered scornfully. 'Have you ever known me make a mistake
When I kill a man I kill him. I put myself to pains, I tell you, not to
kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live.'

'I hope so,' the lieutenant said, with a dry smile. 'And you had better
hope so, too, M. de Berault, For if not--'

'Well?' I said, somewhat troubled. 'If not, what, my friend?'

'I fear he will be the last man you will fight,' he answered.