.

Numerous as they were, the bravos and their new recruits seemed unwilling
to advance against two such famous swordsmen. Lagardere taunted their
apathy:

"Come, you crows, the eagles wait for you." He felt that the words had a
fine theatrical ring, and he enjoyed them as he flung them forth.

Nevers cried his cry, "I am here!" and Lagardere repeated it, "I am
here!" He was longing to come to blows with the bandits, and to show them
what two men could do against their multitude. His sword quivered like a
snake in its eagerness to feel blades against its blade.

The barrel bulk of Staupitz spoke again addressing his little army. "Do
you fear two men?" he asked. "Forward!"

On the word the eighteen men charged, the original seven leading; the
eleven recruits, less whole-hearted in the business, came less alertly in
the rear. The charge of the assassins was abruptly arrested by
Lagardere's bulwark, and over that bulwark the swords of the two
defenders flashed and leaped, and before every thrust a man went down. It
seemed an age of battle, it seemed an instant of battle. Then the baffled
assassins recoiled, leaving two of the smugglers for dead, while Saldagno
and Faenza were both badly wounded, and cursing hideously in Portuguese
and Italian.

Behind the intrenchments, Lagardere chuckled as he heard. He turned to
Nevers. "Are you wounded?" he asked, anxiously.

And Nevers answered, quietly: "A scratch on the forehead."

As he saw Nevers lift his hand for a moment to the space between his
eyes, Lagardere groaned to himself, "My damned fencing-lesson," and
mentally promised to make his enemies pay for their readiness to learn.
He had not long to wait for an opportunity.

The discomfited bravos were rapidly gathering together for a fresh
attack. This time their leading spirit was no longer Staupitz,
disagreeably conscious of the difficulties of the enterprise, but the
hunchback AEsop, who seemed to burn with a passion for slaughter.
Lagardere likened him in his mind to some ungainly, obscene bird of prey,
as he loomed out of the mirk waving his gaunt arms and shrieking in his
rage and hate. "Kill them! kill them!" he screamed, as he rushed across
the intervening space, and the bravos, heartened by his frenzy of fight,
streamed after him, flinging themselves desperately against the piled-up
hay, only to meet again the irresistible weapons of the friends, and
again to recoil before them. Nevers held his own on one si