THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre Dumas

to prevent you from suffering! Oh, I came up to prevent you from being robbed and you pay me back by putting a bullet into my shoulder! Wait for me, coward, wait!”

      While this was going on, Maître la Hurière came up and with one blow with the butt-end of his arquebuse smashed in the door.

      Coconnas darted into the closet, but only bare walls met him. The closet was empty and the window was open.

      “He must have jumped out,” said the landlord, “and as we are on the fourth story, he is surely dead.”

      “Or he has escaped by the roof of the next house,” said Coconnas, putting his leg on the window-sill and preparing to follow him over this narrow and slippery route; but Maurevel and La Hurière seized him and drew him back into the room.

      “Are you mad?” they both exclaimed at once; “you will kill yourself!”

      “Bah!” said Coconnas, “I am a mountaineer, and used to climbing glaciers; besides, when a man has once offended me, I would go up to heaven or descend to hell with him, by whatever route he pleases. Let me do as I wish.”

      “Well,” said Maurevel, “he is either dead or a long way off by this time. Come with us; and if he escape you, you will find a thousand others to take his place.”

      “You are right,” cried Coconnas. “Death to the Huguenots! I want revenge, and the sooner the better.”

      And the three rushed down the staircase, like an avalanche.

      “To the admiral’s!” shouted Maurevel.

      “To the admiral’s!” echoed La Hurière.

      “To the admiral’s, then, if it must be so!” cried Coconnas in his turn.

      And all three, leaving the Belle Étoile in charge of Grégoire and the other waiters, hastened toward the admiral’s hôtel in the Rue de Béthizy; a bright light and the report of fire-arms guided them in that direction.

      “Ah, who comes here?” cried Coconnas. “A man without his doublet or scarf!”

      “It is some one escaping,” said Maurevel.

      “Fire! fire!” said Coconnas; “you who have arquebuses.”

      “Faith, not I,” replied Maurevel. “I keep my powder for better game.”

      “You, then, La Hurière!”

      “Wait, wait!” said the innkeeper, taking aim.

      “Oh, yes, wait,” cried Coconnas, “and meantime he will escape.”

      And he rushed after the unhappy wretch, whom he soon overtook, as he was wounded; but at the moment when, in order that he might not strike him behind, he exclaimed, “Turn, will you! turn!” the report of an arquebuse was heard, a bullet whistled by Coconnas’s ears, and the fugitive rolled over, like a hare in its swiftest flight struck by the shot of the sportsman.

      A cry of triumph was heard behind Coconnas. The Piedmontese turned round and saw La Hurière brandishing his weapon.

      “Ah,” he exclaimed, “I have handselled this time at any rate.”

      “And only just missed making a hole quite through me.”

      “Be on your guard! — be on your guard!” cried La Hurière.

      Coconnas sprung back. The wounded man had risen on his knee, and, eager for revenge, was just on the point of stabbing him with his poniard, when the landlord’s warning put the Piedmontese on his guard.

      “Ah, viper!” shouted Coconnas; and rushing at the wounded man, he thrust his sword through him three times up to the hilt.

      “And now,” cried he, leaving the Huguenot in the agonies of death, “to the admiral’s! — to the admiral’s!”

      “Aha! my gentlemen,” said Maurevel, “it seems to work.”

      “Faith! yes,” replied Coconnas. “I do not know if it is the smell of gunpowder makes me drunk, or the sight of blood excites me, but by Heaven! I am thirsty for slaughter. It is like a battue of men. I have as yet only had battues of bears and wolves, and on my honor, a battue of men seems more amusing.”

      And the three went on their way.

2. Bons chiens chassent de race.

      Chapter 8.

       The Massacre.

       Table of Contents

      The hôtel occupied by the admiral, as we have said, was situated in the Rue de Béthizy. It was a great mansion at the rear of a court and had two wings giving on the street. A wall furnished with a large gate and two small grilled doors stretched from wing to wing.

      When our three Guisards reached the end of the Rue de Béthizy, which is a continuation of the Rue des Fossés Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, they saw the hôtel surrounded by Swiss, by soldiers, and by armed citizens; every one had in his right hand either a sword or a pike or an arquebuse, and some held in their left hands torches, shedding over the scene a fitful and melancholy glare which, according as the throng moved, shifted along the street, climbed the walls; or spread over that living sea where every weapon cast its answering flash.

      All around the hôtel and in the Rues Tirechappe, Étienne, and Bertin Poirée the terrible work was proceeding. Long shouts were heard, there was an incessant rattle of musketry, and from time to time some wretch, half naked, pale, and drenched in blood, leaped like a hunted stag into the circle of lugubrious light where a host of fiends seemed to be at work.

      In an instant Coconnas, Maurevel, and La Hurière, accredited by their white crosses, and received with cries of welcome, were in the thickest of this struggling, panting mob. Doubtless they would not have been able to advance had not some of the throng recognized Maurevel and made way for him. Coconnas and La Hurière followed him closely and the three therefore contrived to get into the court-yard.

      In the centre of this court-yard, the three doors of which had been burst open, a man, around whom the assassins formed a respectful circle, stood leaning on his drawn rapier, and eagerly looking up at a balcony about fifteen feet above him, and extending in front of the principal window of the hôtel.

      This man stamped impatiently on the ground, and from time to time questioned those that were nearest to him.

      “Nothing yet!” murmured he. “No one! — he must have been warned and has escaped. What do you think, Du Gast?”

      “Impossible, monseigneur.”

      “Why? Did you not tell me that just before we arrived a man, bare-headed, a drawn sword in his hand, came running, as if pursued, knocked at the door, and was admitted?”

      “Yes, monseigneur; but M. de Besme came up immediately, the gates were shattered, and the hôtel was surrounded.”

      “The man went in sure enough, but he has not gone out.”

      “Why,” said Coconnas to La Hurière, “if my eyes do not deceive me, I see Monsieur de Guise.”

      “You do see him, sir. Yes; the great Henry de Guise is come in person to watch for the admiral and serve him as he served the duke’s father. Every one has his day, and it is our turn now.”

      “Holà, Besme, holà!” cried the duke, in his powerful voice, “have you not finished yet?”

      And he struck his sword so forcibly against the stones that sparks flew out.

      At this instant shouts were heard in the hôtel — then several shots — then a great shuffling of feet and a clashing of swords, and then all was again silent.

      The duke was