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

excuse of being a hundred to one, forsooth! But the day comes when a man finds his man; and I believe that day has come now. I should very well like to send a bullet through your ugly head; but, bah! I might miss you, for my hand is still trembling from the traitorous wounds you inflicted upon me.”

      “My ugly head!” shouted Coconnas, leaping down from his steed. “Down — down from your horse, M. le Comte, and draw!”

      And he drew his sword.

      “I believe your Huguenot called Monsieur de Coconnas an ‘ugly head,’” whispered the Duchesse de Nevers. “Do you think he is bad looking?”

      “He is charming,” said Marguerite, laughing, “and I am compelled to acknowledge that fury renders Monsieur de La Mole unjust; but hush! let us watch!”

      In fact, La Mole had dismounted from his horse with as much deliberation as Coconnas had shown of precipitation; he had taken off his cherry-colored cloak, laid it leisurely on the ground, drawn his sword, and put himself on guard.

      “Aïe!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his arm.

      “Ouf!” muttered Coconnas, as he moved his — for both, as it will be remembered, had been wounded in the shoulder and it hurt them when they made any violent movement.

      A burst of laughter, ill repressed, came from the clump of bushes. The princesses could not quite contain themselves at the sight of their two champions rubbing their omoplates and making up faces.

      This burst of merriment reached the ears of the two gentlemen, who were ignorant that they had witnesses; turning round, they beheld their ladies.

      La Mole resumed his guard as firm as an automaton, and Coconnas crossed his blade with an emphatic “By Heaven!”

      “Ah ça! now they will murder each other in real earnest, if we do not interfere. There has been enough of this. Holá, gentlemen! — holá!” cried Marguerite.

      “Let them be! let them be!” said Henriette, who having seen Coconnas at work, hoped in her heart that he would have as easy a victory over La Mole as he had over Mercandon’s son and two nephews.

      “Oh, they are really beautiful so!” exclaimed Marguerite. “Look — they seem to breathe fire!”

      Indeed, the combat, begun with sarcasms and mutual insults, became silent as soon as the champions had crossed their swords. Each distrusted his own strength, and each, at every quick pass, was compelled to restrain an expression of pain occasioned by his own wounds. Nevertheless, with eyes fixed and burning, mouth half open, and teeth clenched, La Mole advanced with short and firm steps toward his adversary, who, seeing in him a most skilful swordsman, retreated step by step. They both thus reached the edge of the ditch on the other side of which were the spectators; then, as if his retreat had been only a simple stratagem to draw nearer to his lady, Coconnas took his stand, and as La Mole made his guard a little too wide, he made a thrust with the quickness of lightning and instantly La Mole’s white satin doublet was stained with a spot of blood which kept growing larger.

      “Courage!” cried the Duchesse de Nevers.

      “Ah, poor La Mole!” exclaimed Marguerite, with a cry of distress.

      La Mole heard this cry, darted at the queen one of those looks which penetrate the heart even deeper than a sword-point, and taking advantage of a false parade, thrust vigorously at his adversary.

      This time the two women uttered two cries which seemed like one. The point of La Mole’s rapier had appeared, all covered with blood, behind Coconnas’s back.

      Yet neither fell. Both remained erect, looking at each other with open mouth, and feeling that on the slightest movement they must lose their balance. At last the Piedmontese, more dangerously wounded than his adversary, and feeling his senses forsaking him with his blood, fell on La Mole, grasping him with one hand, while with the other he endeavored to unsheath his poniard.

      La Mole roused all his strength, raised his hand, and let fall the pommel of his sword on Coconnas’s forehead. Coconnas, stupefied by the blow, fell, but in his fall drew down his adversary with him, and both rolled into the ditch.

      Then Marguerite and the Duchesse de Nevers, seeing that, dying as they were, they were still struggling to destroy each other, hastened to them, followed by the captain of the guards; but before they could reach them the combatants’ hands unloosened, their eyes closed, and letting go their grasp of their weapons they stiffened in what seemed like their final agony. A wide stream of blood bubbled round them.

      “Oh, brave, brave La Mole!” cried Marguerite, unable any longer to repress her admiration. “Ah! pardon me a thousand times for having a moment doubted your courage.”

      And her eyes filled with tears.

      “Alas! alas!” murmured the duchess, “gallant Annibal. Did you ever see two such intrepid lions, madame?”

      And she sobbed aloud.

      “Heavens! what ugly thrusts,” said the captain, endeavoring to stanch the streams of blood. “Holá! you, there, come here as quickly as you can — here, I say”—

      He addressed a man who, seated on a kind of tumbril or cart painted red, appeared in the evening mist singing this old song, which had doubtless been suggested to him by the miracle of the Cemetery of the Innocents:

      “Bel aubespin fleurissant Verdissant, Le long de ce beau rivage, Tu es vétu, jusqu’au bas Des longs bras D’une lambrusche sauvage.

      “Le chantre rossignolet, Nouvelet, Courtisant sa bien-aimée Pour ses amours alléger Vient logerv Tous les ans sous ta ramée.

“Or, vis, gentil aubespin Vis sans fin; Vis, sans que jamais tonnerre, Ou la cognée, ou les vents Ou le temps Te puissent ruer par.” . . . ⁵

      “Holá! hé!” shouted the captain a second time, “come when you are called. Don’t you see that these gentlemen need help?”

      The carter, whose repulsive exterior and coarse face formed a singular contrast with the sweet and sylvan song we have just quoted, stopped his horse, got out, and bending over the two bodies said:

      “These be terrible wounds, sure enough, but I have made worse in my time.”

      “Who are you, pray?” inquired Marguerite, experiencing, in spite of herself, a certain vague terror which she could not overcome.

      “Madame,” replied the man, bowing down to the ground, “I am Maître Caboche, headsman to the provostry of Paris, and I have come to hang up at the gibbet some companions for Monsieur the Admiral.”

      “Well! and I am the Queen of Navarre,” replied Marguerite; “cast your corpses down there, spread in your cart the housings of our horses, and bring these two gentlemen softly behind us to the Louvre.”

4. Here lies — the term the question begs, For him you need a word that’s stronger: Here hangs the admiral by the legs — Because he has a head no longer!

5. Hawthorn brightly blossoming, Thou dost fling Verdant shadows down the river; Thou art clad from top to roots With long shoots On which graceful leaflets quiver. Here the poetic nightingale Ne’er doth fail — Having sung his love to capture — To repair to consecrate, ‘Neath thy verdure, hours of rapture. Therefore live, O Hawthorn fair, Live fore’er! May no thunder bolt dare smite thee! May no axe or cruel blast Overcast! May the tooth of time. . . .

      Chapter 17.

       Maître Ambroise Paré’s Confrère.