urrounded!"

Nevers gave an angry cry: "Too late!"

Lagardere answered him with a laugh. "Nonsense! There are but nine
rascals."

But the laugh died away upon his lips when the page hurriedly
interrupted: "Twenty at least."

Lagardere was staggered but emphatic. "Nine, duke, nine. I saw them,
counted them, know them."

The page was equally emphatic. "They have got help since you came. There
are smugglers hereabouts, and they have recruited their ranks from
them."

Lagardere grunted. "Ungentlemanly," he protested, and then addressed
Nevers: "Well, duke, we can manage ten apiece easily." He turned to the
boy and gave him some quick instructions. "Creep through the wood behind
the castle to the highway. Run like the devil to the cross-roads, where
my men wait. Tell them Lagardere is in danger. They may be here in a
quarter of an hour."

The boy answered him, decisively: "They shall be."

Lagardere patted him on the back. "Good lad," he said, and the boy darted
from his side and disappeared into the darkness.

Lagardere turned to the duke. "There is no chance of escaping now without
a scuffle," he said; "we must fight it out as well as we can. You and I,
duke, ought not to think it a great matter to handle ten rascals apiece
in this fighting-place, if only we intrench ourselves properly."

As he spoke he laid his precious bundle reverently in the hay-cart, where
it seemed to sleep as peacefully as if it were in its native cradle, and
began piling up the great masses of the bundles of hay in front of him to
form a kind of rampart.

Nevers looked at him in astonishment. "Do you stand by me?"

Lagardere answered him cheerfully. "I came here to fight with you. I stay
here to fight for you. I must fight somebody. I lose by the change, for
it is a greater honor to fight Monsieur de Nevers than a battalion of
bravos, but there is no help for it."

There was a little silence, and then Nevers said, slowly: "You are a
splendid gentleman."

"There is nothing to make a fuss about," Lagardere said, lightly. "I am
this little lady's soldier. I came here in a cutthroat humor enough, but
since I dandled her daintiness in my arms I've taken a fine liking for
her father."

Nevers reached out his hand to Lagardere. "Henceforward we are
comrades--brothers."

Lagardere clasped the extended hand. "Heart and hand, for life and death,
brother."

VIII

THE FIGHT IN THE MOAT

As they stood there, hand clasped in ha