DOOMED.

Remembering that his horse (which he would require ere long to carry him to the mountains, since although, as he had thanked God again and again, Urbaine was in no danger, Baville would doubtless desire him to obtain her release at once) had been left in the stables behind the Porte des Carmes, Martin made his way there. Went toward the gate, resolved to fetch it away and place it in some more secure spot than the one in which several dragoons had tied up theirs ere dismounting.

Reaching the yard, he found the animal; found also that the dragoons must have preceded him, since now all their horses were gone excepting one, which, by its caparisons and trappings, by the great gold sun upon the bridle, the throat-plume and saddle-flaps, as well as by its fleecy bear-skin saddle-cloth, was plainly an officer's.

"A fine beast," he mused as, ere he removed his own horse, he held a bucket of water to its mouth, "a fine beast. Too good to be employed in carrying its rider to such work as he and his men have been about to-day."

As he thought thus he heard the heavy ring of spurred boots upon the rough flags of the yard, also the clang of a metal scabbard-tip on them, and, glancing round, saw coming toward him a young dragoon officer, his face flushed, perhaps with the heat, perhaps with the business that he and his troops had been recently employed upon.

"Peste!" the man exclaimed as he came up to his own steed and began unfastening the bridle from the staple to which it was attached. "Peste! Hot work, monsieur, this morning, what with the glaring sun and the flames from the mill. N'est-ce pas, monsieur? Yet, yet I wish those heretics had not been of the feeble. It is no soldier's work slaughtering babes and women and vieillards. My God!" he broke off, exclaiming, a moment later, "So it is you, villain!"

"What!" exclaimed Martin, astonished at this sudden change of speech and regarding him as though he were a madman. "What! Villain! To whom does monsieur apply that word?" and the look upon his face should have warned the young man to be careful of his words.

"To whom," the other sneered, however, "to whom? To whom should I apply it but one? Who else is there in the stable-yard but you to whom it would apply? And if there were fifty more, I should still address it to you. Also the word murderer."

"To me! Are you mad that you assault a stranger thus with such opprobrium? Answer, or, being sane, draw the weapon by your side."

"Which is that which I intend to do. Yet I know not whether you are fit to cross blades with. You! You!"

"You will know it shortly," Martin said quietly, as now he drew his own sword and stood before him, "unless, that is, you have some very tangible explanation of your words to offer."

"Explanation! Explanation! Oh, avec ?a! you shall have an explanation. Are you not the fellow who sat on the bridge when De Peyre's dragoons rode into Montvert after the murder of the Abbé du Chaila? Are you not the man who led the attack on the Intendant's daughter, dragging her from her carriage, carried her off to the mountains, to your accursed attroupés; doubtless assisted in her murder? Answer that, maraud, and tell no lies."

And even as he spoke he struck at him with the gauntlet he held in his hand, muttering, "I loved her, I loved her, and I will slay you." Then said again, "Answer ere I slay you."

"I will answer you," said Martin quietly still--so quietly, yet ominously, that, had the man before him not been a soldier, he would have been well advised to flee from out the yard. "But it must be later; when I have stretched you at my feet for your insolence. You shall have the explanation when I have paid you back that blow, when your soul is hurrying to join your victims of this morning."

His blood was up now. The abusive words of the soldier; the sting of the heavy gauntlet still upon his cheek; perhaps, though that he scarce recognized, the feeling of hate against this swashbuckler for having dared to dream of loving Urbaine--all combined to make him resolute to kill the man before him. Also the horror, the disgust, that every effort he had made, every danger he had run, should be subjected to such misinterpretation, added to the accusation, if any addition were needed, that doubtless he had murdered her. For the first time in the course of this unholy war his weapon was unsheathed, about to be used. It should not find its scabbard again till it was wet with this man's life blood.

"Have I been mistaken?" the soldier said, astonished by his words, above all by his calm. "Made some strange error?"

"You have. No greater in your life than that foul blow. Put up your weapon before you, or I run you through as you stand here. Quick, en garde. I am neither 'woman, babe, nor vieillard.'"

"If it must be, it must----"

"It must!"

"Soit! If you will have it so."

The yard was large enough for any pair of escrimeurs to make fair play in, yet had it been smaller it would have well sufficed, as the dragoon found. Found that he had his master here before him, a man in whose hands he was a child; a fencer who would not let him move from the spot he was on, except backward slowly to the wall. And that not by his own desire, but because the iron wrist in front of him rendered resistance to its owner's will impossible.

Sword-play such as this he had never known, nor an adversary who parried every thrust as he made it, yet never lunged himself, reserving, doubtless, all his strength for that lunge at last. Strength to thrust through muscle and chest-wall the blade which would pierce his heart.

He felt that he was doomed. There rose before him an old manoir with a window high up in a tourelle, a window from which he knew that, even now, a gray-haired, sad-eyed woman--his mother!--watched as she had often watched for his coming. Ah, well, he would never appear again to gladden her. Never, never, through all the years that she might live. Never!

There was a click, a tic-tac of steel against steel that told him his reflections were but too true and just, that the gray-haired woman's chance of ever seeing him again would be gone in a few seconds now. Also he experienced that feeling which every swordsman has known more than once, the feeling that the wrist of the opponent is preparing the way for the deadly lunge, the feeling that his own guard is being pressed down with horrible, devilish force, that the lightning thrust will be through him in a moment.

For a moment he was saved, his agony prolonged by an interruption. Two men--warders--had appeared on the roof of the gate, and, seeing what was going on below, stood there watching the play of the swords. Joking and jeering, too, about his incompetency in spite of the scarlet and gold he wore, bidding him take heart; that soon it would be over; also that the pain was not great after the first bite of the steel.

And disturbed, agitated, he but clumsily endeavoured to guard himself from that awful pressure, knowing that the thrust must come directly.

Astonished, he found it did not do so. Instead, the pressure relaxed. A moment later his adversary spoke to him.

"Those fellows agitate you. Take breath," and the dreaded blade was still. Soon both weapons were unlocked.

"You are very noble," the dragoon said. "I--I--no matter. Let us continue," and muttered to himself, "as well now as three moments later," preparing for the death he knew was to be his. Or rather thought was to be his, not dreaming that it would never be dealt to him by the calm and apparently implacable swordsman before him. For Martin, his blood cooling as he learned how poor a foeman he was opposed to, a swordsman unworthy of his steel............