swords."

Both listened intently.

"I hear nothing now."

"Hush! there it goes again. It's by the church."

"What a dreadful cry!"

They ran at full speed towards the place whence it seemed to come,
but found only solitude, darkness, and silence. They looked in every
direction.

"I can't see a living soul," said Jeannin, "and I very much fear that
the poor devil who gave that yell has mumbled his last prayer."

"I don't know why I tremble so," replied de Jars; "that heart-rending
cry made me shiver from head to foot. Was it not something like the
chevalier's voice?"

"The chevalier is with La Guerchi, and even if he had left her this
would not have been his way to rejoin us. Let us go on and leave the
dead in peace."

"Look, Jeannin! what is that in front of us?"

"On that stone? A man who has fallen!"

"Yes, and bathed in blood," exclaimed de Jars, who had darted to his
side. "Ah! it's he! it's he! Look, his eyes are closed, his hands cold!
My child he does not hear me! Oh, who has murdered him?"

He fell on his knees, and threw himself on the body with every mark of
the most violent despair.

"Come, come," said Jeannin, surprised at such an explosion of grief from
a man accustomed to duels, and who on several similar occasions had been
far from displaying much tenderness of heart, "collect yourself, and
don't give way like a woman. Perhaps the wound is not mortal. Let us try
to stop the bleeding and call for help."

"No, no--"

"Are you mad?"

"Don't call, for Heaven's sake! The wound is here, near the heart. Your
handkerchief, Jeannin, to arrest the flow of blood. There--now help me
to lift him."

"What does that mean?" cried Jeannin, who had just laid his hand on the
chevalier. "I don't know whether I'm awake or asleep! Why, it's a---"

"Be silent, on your life! I shall explain everything--but now be silent;
there is someone looking at us."

There was indeed a man wrapped in a mantle standing motionless some
steps away.

"What are you doing here?" asked de Jars.

"May I ask what you are doing, gentlemen?" retorted Maitre Quennebert,
in a calm and steady voice.

"Your curiosity may cost you dear, monsieur; we are not in the habit of
allowing our actions to be spied on."

"And I am not in the habit of running useless risks, most noble
cavaliers. You are, it is true, two against one; but," he added,
throwing back his cloak and grasping the hilts of a pair of pistols
tucked in his belt,