Below the attack halted, but up the stairway came the noise of rough laughter and rougher words, words which made Stephen La Mothe's blood grow hot and his nerves tingle as, gritting his teeth, he stamped his feet so that the girl might not hear them also. Resolute? Desperate? Yes, much more than resolute, much more than desperate, and with much more than a man's life to be lost. And all were of one mind. Follette he was sure of, and at his right Blaise, the stable-lad, panted in short breaths, swinging his unaccustomed weapon softly. "Damn them!" La Mothe heard him say. "Will they never come?" and when the nine minutes had crawled to twelve they came.

But not with a rush, not as those above had reckoned. The siege had grown cautious. This time there was a system. Up, on the very edge of the steps, broad, wide, and shallow for the easier carrying of heavy loads upon the back, came the two with the palisades, up, until the pickets were a full yard through the well-hole, but with those who held them out of reach, and with a shout, the wood rasping the ancient flagging, each swept a quarter circle. It was the work of an instant. As the pickets crashed against the wall the voice from behind cried, "Now lads!" and the rush came. There was the clang of iron-shod feet on the stones, a glimmer in the half obscurity, and behind the pickets the stairway bristled with steel.

"Praises be!" cried Blaise, and crouched on his heels. Down he leaned, down, forward, and lunged clumsily. That, too, was the work of an instant, an act concurrent with his cry, but when he straightened himself a picket had dropped into the gloom, and he who held it lay upon it, coughing and choking. "Rats!" said Blaise, slashing viciously at the blade nearest him. "Dieu! but the rat bit the cur dog that time! Come on, you curs."

And the rats had need to bite. The well-hole was double-lined; those in front fought upward, while those behind protected them and stole a step higher if the defence slackened. Nice play of fence there was none. In such a packed confusion the brute strength of Blaise the stableman counted for more than the finest skill of fence in the world. And with the brute's strength he seemed to have the brute's indifference to pain. Twice, stooping low, he parried with his arm, taking the slash with a gasp but thrusting as he took it, and each thrust struck home. But those behind filled the gaps, those below pressed upward stair by stair, and La Mothe, breathless, but without a scratch, knew what it was to be blood-drunken as the din of steel filled his ears and he saw the flushed and staring faces opposite rise minute by minute more level with his own. The three were doing all men could dare or do, but the end was nearer and nearer with every breath. The end! God in heaven! No! not that—not that; and in his drunkenness he dashed a thrust aside as Blaise had done, stabbed as Blaise had stabbed, and laughed drunkenly that he had sent a soul to its Maker with all the passions of lust and murder hot upon it; but happier than Blaise he took no hurt.

"Mademoiselle," said La Follette without turning his head, and speaking softly to save his breath, "go you and Monseigneur to the corner behind me," and La Mothe knew that he too saw the coming of the end. There in the corner, with Love and France behind them, they would make their last stand.

"I have Monseigneur's dagger," she answered. Again La Mothe understood the inference left unspoken, understood that she as well as he had heard the brutal jests which had set his blood boiling. That she had the dagger was a comfort; but what a splendid courage was hers. Marcel had even ceased to pray.

For very life's sake La Mothe dared abate the vigilance of neither eye nor hand, and yet by instinct—there was no sound—he knew they had risen to obey. By instinct, too, he knew that Ursula de Vesc had drawn nearer, and it was no surprise to hear her voice behind him. But it was not to him she spoke.

"Now, Blaise, thrust, thrust!"

There was a rip of torn cloth, a flutter in the air—the flutter as of a bird on the wing—an upturned point was caught in a tangle of white linen, and through the tangle Blaise rammed his sword-blade almost to the hilt and laughed, panting.

"Rats!" he cried, tugging his arm backwards with a horrible jerk. "Go to your hole, cur!" and more blood-drunken even than La Mothe he broke into a village song.

"'Rosalie was soft and sweet;
Sweet to kiss, sweet to kiss:
Hair and month and cheek and feet,
Sweet to kiss, sweet to kiss.'

"Mademoiselle, fling in that praying lout from the corner and make some use of him; it's all he's fit for."

But the gap was filled; there were two on the top-most step, and La Follette, not only wounded in the thigh but slashed across the ribs, was giving ground.

"Be ready, La Mothe," he said. His teeth were clenched and his chest laboured heavily. "Be ready, Blaise."

"Ready," answered La Mothe, saving his breath. His heart was very bitter. The twelve minutes were seventeen, succour could not be far off, but the end had come. "Do you hear, Blaise?"

But Blaise was past hearing. While he fought with his right his maimed left hand, cut to the bones, had torn his smock open from the throat, and the hairy chest, smeared with his blood, glistened in broad drops from the sweat of his labours. In such a hilt-to-hilt struggle his ignorance was almost an advantage. He had nothing to unlearn, no rules of fence to disregard, and his peasant's strength of arm whirled aside an attack with a paralyzing power impossible to any skill. Right, left, downward swept the blade, his knees and hips half bent as he leaned forward, crouching, his left arm swinging as he swayed. Right, left, downward, his blood-drunkenness growing in savage abandonment with every minute. Yes, he was ready—ready in his own way—but past hearing.

"Damn the English," was his answer to La Mothe, his mind back in the fifty-year-old tragedy. The play was no make-believe, and he was Michel Calvet, son to Jean the sixth, the Michel whose elder brother had been coursed like a hare and killed in the open. Then his song rose afresh, but gaspingly, raucously, as if the notes tore his chest.

"'Rosalie, I love you true;
Kiss me, sweet, kiss me, sweet.
Lov'st thou me as I love you?
Kiss me, sweet, kiss me, sweet.'

"Rats," said he! "Come up, y' cur dogs, come up."

"La Mothe," breathed La Follette, "when I say Now!"

Yes, the end had come.

"Damn the English," cried Blaise hoarsely. With a mighty stroke he swept aside the opposing points, drew a choking breath, crouched lower, and, with the Dauphin's sword at the charge, he flung himself into the gap breast-forward, missed his thrust, splintered the blade against the wall, and with a wild clutch drew all within reach into his grip. For an instant they hung upon a stair-edge, then, in a writhing, floundering mass, breast to breast, breathless, half dead or dying, they rolled to the floor. From behind La Mothe heard Ursula de Vesc cry, "Oh God! pity him!" in a sob. But he dared not turn, his own blood-drunkenness fired him to the finger-tips and he lunged furiously, getting home a stroke above a point lowered in the surprise. Again there was a rush of iron-shod feet upon the stones, but a rush downward, a moment's pause below, a crossing babel of passionate, clamouring voices, insistence, denial, and yet more denial, then a silence—or what seemed a silence—a few hoarse whispers and a cry or two of pain. Yes, the end had come. In the corner stood the Dauphin and, half in front, Ursula de Vesc, her arm stretched out across his breast in the old attitude of protection. Marcel lay beside them in a faint.

"Hugues?" There was a question and a cry in the boy's one word.

"Charles, Charles, have you nothing to say to the brave men who almost died for you?"

"Hugues loved me," he answered, and at the bitter pathos of the reply La Mothe forgot the ingratitude. There were so few who loved him. But the girl could not forget.

"Monsieur La Follette, Monsieur La Mothe," she began, but broke off with a cry. "Oh, Monsieur La Follette, you are wounded? What can I do? Words can come afterwards, and all my life I will remember, all my life. Are you dreadfully hurt? Can I not do something?" But though she spoke to La Follette her eyes, after the first glance, were busy searching Stephen La Mothe for just such an ominous stain as showed in brown patches upon La Follette. But there was none. Breathless, dishevelled, his clothing slashed, he was without a scratch, and the strained anxiety faded from her face.

"I can wait," answered La Follette, "we must get the Dauphin to the ChÂteau. La Mothe, see if they are gone," and he glanced significantly down the stairway. La Follette knew something of war, and there must be sights below it were better Ursula de Vesc should not see lest they haunt her all her life, sleeping or waking.

But the Dauphin, his nerves strained and raw, had grown petulant.

"It is safe enough. I heard them ride off. I want Hugues. I want
Hugues."

"And Blaise?"

"Oh! Blaise!" He broke into a discordant laugh. "I told him to be a man and, my faith! he was one. Do you think, Ursula, that Father John will ask my thoughts a second time?"