places wooden crosses with imitation flowers hanging on their crossbars, covered with frozen snow; in others, huge mounds alone, to mark the spots where the dead lay.
"Not bad," said the mousquetaire, as he glanced his eye round the melancholy spot, "for an encounter, if they mean one. – Steady, mon brave," to his horse, "steady! – Ah! here comes one. Well, we have the point o' vantage. We are in the churchyard; they have to come up the rise to attack us. Peste! what can they want with two soldiers?"
St. Georges arranged his child under his arm more carefully, gathered his reins into the hand of that arm, and then, with the other, drew his long sword – it glittered in the rays of the young moon like a streak of phosphorus! – and was followed in this action by Boussac. After which he whispered: "See! All six are coming. Which is the one who, you say, followed us from Flavigny?"
"He who hangs behind all the others. The biggest of all."
As the mousquetaire answered, the men of whom he had spoken, and who had gradually come from behind the hedges and trees that grew all along the way, formed up together, five of them being in a body behind one who was evidently their leader and who rode a little ahead. And all were, as Boussac had said, masked, while one or two had breastpieces over their jerkins and some large gorgets. As for the leader himself, he wore what, even for the end of the seventeenth century, was almost now obsolete, a burganet with the visor down.
As he advanced until his horse's head was where the graveyard gate would have been, had it hung properly on its hinges and been closed, he spoke, saying – while his voice sounded hollow by reason of the band of steel which muffled it: "Who are you who ride on the king's highroad to-night? Soldiers, I see, by your accoutrements, and one a mousquetaire. Answer and explain why neither are with your regiments."
"First," replied St. Georges, "answer you, yourself. By what right do you demand so much of a chevau-léger, whose cockade is his passport, and of a mousquetaire who is of the king's own house?"
"I represent the governor of the territory of Burgundy, and have the right to make the demand."
"That we will concede when you give us proof of it. Meanwhile, take my assurance as an officer that we ride by the king's orders. That order I carry in my pocket for myself; my comrade goes to join the Mousquetaires Noirs at Bar."
"Still we must see your papers."
"As you shall," said St. Georges, "when you produce your own. Otherwise we intend to proceed to-night to that village ahead."
"You do? How if we prevent you?"
"Prevent!" echoed St. Georges, with a contemptuous laugh. "Prevent! Come, sir, come. You are no representative of the governor, as you know very well. He scarcely, I imagine, sets spies, such as that skulking fellow behind you, to track the king's soldiers from village to village, from daybreak to night." Then raising his voice authoritatively, he said: "Stand out of our way! – Boussac, avancéz!" and he urged his horse forward to the leader so that the animals' heads touched.
"So be it," exclaimed the other, and, turning his head to those behind, the two comrades heard him say: "The bait takes. Fall on."
In an instant the mêlée had begun – in another St. Georges knew what he had from the first suspected. It was his life and the life of his child that was aimed at!
All hurled their horses against him – except the sixth man, he who had tracked them all day, and who now, masked and with his sword drawn, sat his horse outside of the fray, looking on at what was being done by the others.
The leader dealt blow after blow at St. Georges without effect, owing to the latter's skilful swordsmanship; the remaining four directed theirs at the arm which bore and shielded the child, and which, had Armand Boussac not been by, would have been pierced through and through. But the adroit swordsman perceived the intention of these murderers – the would-be murderers of a little child! – and foiled them again and again, beating off their weapons with his own, and at the same time losing no opportunity of attacking them. And so far was he successful that already he had put two hors de combat. One was by now off his horse, lying across a snow-covered grave which was rapidly becoming red from the blood that poured from his lungs, through which the mousquetaire's sword had passed two minutes before; the other, lying forward on his horse's neck, was urging the animal out of the press of the fight.
And now the odds were but three to two – for still the man who took no part in the attack sat on his animal's back, and, indeed, from the glances he cast round him appeared to be meditating flight.
Yet withal they were unequal odds, especially since their three antagonists were skilful swordsmen, the leader in particular wielding his weapon with remarkable craft. Moreover, by his possession of the burganet he wore, the odds were still greater in his favour – it had saved his life more than once already, from the blows dealt at his head by St. Georges.
Yet now those odds were soon further diminished – the chances became at last equal. As one of the two followers thrust at the arm of the chevau-léger, meaning to strike the burden he carried beneath, Boussac with a quick parry turned his weapon off, and thus gliding it along his own blade, brought its hilt with a clash against his own. Then in a moment the mousquetaire had seized the sword arm of his antagonist, and, holding it a moment, struck through the man's body with his own weapon, which he shortened in his grasp. A second later the fellow was writhing on the ground beneath the feet of the various steeds, and helping to crimson the snow, as the others had done who had fallen previously.
"Pasquedieu!" the comrades heard the leader mutter through the bars of his helmet, "we fail." Then, as he and St. Georges wheeled around on their horses, while still their weapons clashed and writhed together, he shouted to the man who had taken no part in the affray, "Hound! cur! come and render assistance!"
"Ay," exclaimed Boussac, "come and render him assistance. The chances are even without you. We shall defeat him ere long if you assist not!" and with a mocking laugh he again attacked his own particular adversary, taking heed at the same time to insure that no thrust nor blow of his should strike the precious burden under St. Georges's arm.
In truth, the fellow skulking on the horse seemed to think that matters tended in the direction indicated, for, instead of responding to the leader's orders, he shook up the reins of his own horse, and in a moment had vanished into the night, leaving the four combatants equally matched – except that on the side of St. Georges and Boussac there was the child to be protected.
And now those four set grimly to work – though had there been an onlooker of the fray in that deserted churchyard he would have said that the defenders, and not the attackers, had most stomach for the fight! St. Georges, his blood at boiling point at the assaults made on his little child – now screaming lustily at the noise and clash of steel, and perhaps at the unwonted tossing about to which it had been subjected – fought determinately, his teeth clinched, his eyes gleaming fire. He had sworn to kill this assassin, who had led his band against him. He meant to kill him!
Yet it was hard to do – the other was himself a swordsman of skill. But, skilful as he was, one good thing had now happened: neither he nor his follower could any more threaten harm to the little Dorine! They had sufficient to do to protect themselves from the two soldiers – to protect themselves from the blows and thrusts that came at them; so that, at last, they were forced to retreat down the slope to the road – driven back by the irresistible fury of St. Georges and his follower. And, eventually, seeing that he had got the worst of it, the leader, after one ineffectual thrust at his antagonist, wheeled his horse round and, with a cry to the other to follow him, dashed off down the road in the same direction that the man who had skulked all through the fight had taken.
Yet
