At the sight of the two men, the ruffians at the table set up a roar of welcome and bumped their mugs lustily upon the board to a chorus of greeting, in which the names of Cocardasse and Passepoil were repeated in a variety of accents from German to Italian, from Portuguese to Biscayan, from Spanish to Breton, but in all cases with the same degree of enthusiasm and admiration. The big, gaudy fellow, patently pleased by the tribute, struck a magnificent attitude and extended a benedictory hand towards the drinkers. "Courage, chanticleers!" he shouted—"comrades all," and, advancing towards the table, gave Staupitz a lusty slap on the back, while Passepoil, following nervously behind him, whispered beneath his breath and behind his lifted hand a timid "Greeting, gentlemen," which was hardly audible in the buzz of voices. But while Cocardasse was busy engaging clasps of the hand with the men of many nationalities who had been waiting for him, the attention of Passepoil was entirely diverted by the appearance of the Inn maid, Martine, who at that moment appeared upon the scene with a fresh pitcher of wine in honor of the fresh arrivals. The lean and pale man blushed and sighed as he saw her. Those in the room that knew the Norman were well aware that love of woman was his weakness, and they paid no heed to his attempted philandering, taking it, so far as they thought of it at all, as a matter of course and honest Passepoil’s way.

Though Martine was as little comely as need be, she was still a woman, and a woman Passepoil had never seen before, and, sidling towards her, he endeavored to enter into amicable conversation, which was received but indifferently well. By this time Cocardasse had finished his greetings, and, drawing back a step or two, surveyed the company with a look of satisfaction not unmingled with astonishment.

"Why, Papa Staupitz," he said, "here we have many friends and all fine blades. This is indeed a pleasure party." His eyes travelled from the table to the window, where the man in black still sat and read quite unconcernedly. Something like surprise puckered Cocardasse’s rubicund face. "You here, Æsop?" he questioned.

The man whom he called Æsop looked up for a moment from his book and shrugged his shoulders. "Devil knows why!" he said. "If they want me, they don’t want the others. If they want the others, they don’t want me."

His remarks were interrupted by a slight scuffle between Passepoil and Martine. Passepoil had so far conquered his natural timidity as to go to the length of soliciting a kiss from the Inn maid. She had successfully repulsed him with a slap on each of his cheeks, and had slipped from the room. While Passepoil was rubbing his face ruefully, Æsop went on, sardonically:

"What do you think of it, friend Cocardasse? Here we are, nine of us, nine picked swordsmen, and we are going to fight one man."

Cocardasse had returned to the table and filled himself a monstrous measure of wine. He was thirsty, an habitual state with him, and he eyed the rough wine lovingly.

"Who is the giant who is going to fight nine of us?" he asked as he lifted his cup from the board.

Passepoil, who, enjoying like his comrade an abiding drought, had followed his example, hoping to find consolation in wine for the disappointments of love, also expressed his surprise.

"Every man of us can fight three men at a time," he whispered, timidly, and he, too, lifted his glass.

"Who is the man, anyhow?" said Cocardasse, cheerfully, making the wine swing in the vessel; and Staupitz answered him, slowly:

"Louis, Duke of Nevers."

The effect of this simple speech upon the new-comers was exceedingly remarkable. Cocardasse seemed suddenly to forget his thirst, for he set down his untasted mug upon the table. Passepoil did the like. "Oh!" said Cocardasse, solemnly. "Ah!" said Passepoil, gloomily.

For a few appreciable seconds of strained excitement to those that watched them the pair remained rigid, staring at their rejected wine-cups, as if the liquor they contained had some monstrous Medusa-like property of stiffening into stone all those that presumed to drink of it. Then the Gascon, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at the Norman; and the Norman, slowly turning his head, gazed steadfastly at the Gascon, and then the pair, so gazing, both wagged their polls very solemnly indeed, and puckered their eyebrows and betrayed many other very visible signs of dissatisfaction, not to say of discomfort. Then Cocardasse muttered to his comrade the words "Louis de Nevers," as if they were not at all to his liking, and Passepoil, in his turn, repeated the words, as if they were not at all to his liking, and then they both sighed and grunted and were silent.

The look of stupefaction, not to say consternation, on the faces of the new arrivals was patent to every man in the room—most patent and most unpalatable to the leader of the gang. Staupitz thrust his red, Teutonic face forward with a mocking look and a mocking voice as he grunted: "Seems to me you don’t relish the job."

Cocardasse nodded at him with perfect affability, and patted his shoulder with a massive, red hand. "Papa Staupitz," he said, good-humoredly, "you read me like a book."

"In the largest print," added Passepoil, who generally supplemented any remark of his comrade with some approving comment of his own.

Staupitz swung round in his chair, upsetting a tankard in his angry movement, as he glared, all rage, at the strangely assorted pair. "Are you afraid?" he asked, with guttural contempt.

Cocardasse grinned and showed his large, dog-like teeth. "I am not afraid of you, Papa Staupitz," he said, quite cheerfully, "nor of any man in this room, nor of all the men in this room."

Passepoil added, stammering in his speech, blinking his pink eyelids rapidly: "If any gentleman doubts the point, there is a pleasant bit of kitchen garden outside where we can adjourn and argue the matter pleasantly together, as gentlemen should."

Nobody present seemed inclined to pick a quarrel either with the ebullient Gascon or the hesitating Norman. The six bullies at the table knew well enough, and savage, masterful Æsop at the window knew well enough, that the swaggering Gascon was the first fencing-master in Paris, and that his colleague, the Norman, for all his air of ineffable timidity, was only second to him in skill with the weapon and readiness to use it. There was a moment’s silence, and then Cocardasse observed: "I’m afraid of just two men in the world."

"The same with me," added Passepoil, humbly.

Cocardasse resumed his interrupted speech: "And one of them is Louis de Nevers."

Staupitz’s puzzled, angry face travelled round the room, ranging over the Gascon, the Norman, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Biscayan, the Breton, and the hunchback. "Thunder and weather!" he cried; "is not nine to one good enough odds for you?"

The others, with the exception of Æsop, who still seemed to read as peacefully in his book as if he were alone in the room, appeared inclined to applaud the question of their chief, but Cocardasse was not in the least impressed by the retort. He replied to Staupitz’s query with another—"Have you never heard of the secret thrust of Nevers?"

A new silence seemed to fall upon the company, and for the second time since the Gascon and the Norman had entered the room the hunchback took a part in the conversation, closing his book as he did so, but carefully keeping a finger between the pages to mark the place. "I don’t believe in secret thrusts," he said, decisively.

The Gascon moved a little away from Staupitz and a little nearer to Æsop, whom he looked at fixedly. The hunchback sustained his gaze with his habitual air of cold indifference. Cocardasse spoke: "You will, if you ever face Louis de Nevers. Now, Passepoil, here, and I, we are, I believe, held in general repute as pretty good swordsmen—"

Passepoil interrupted, stuttering furiously in his excitement: "But he touched us with that secret thrust in our own school in Paris—"

Cocardasse completed his friend’s statement: "Three times, here on the forehead, just between the eyes."

Passepoil labored his point: "Devil take us if we could find a parry for it."

Cocardasse summed up his argument, gloomily: "They say it has never been parried, never will be parried."

Again an awkward silence reigned. With a shrug of his shoulders, Æsop resumed his studies, finding Aretino more diverting than such nonsense. Breton stared at Teuton; Italian interrogated Spaniard; Portuguese questioned Biscayan. The affairs of the party seemed to be at a dead-lock. The fact was that Staupitz and his little band of babies, as he was pleased to call them, were not really of the same social standing in the world of cutthroats as Gascon Cocardasse and Norman Passepoil. Cocardasse and his companion were recognized fencing-masters in Paris, well esteemed, if not of the highest note, whereas Staupitz was no better than an ordinary bully-broker, and his so-styled children no more than provincial rascallions. It was not for them, and they knew it, to display such knowledge of the great world as might be aired by Cocardasse and Passepoil, and when Cocardasse spoke with so much significance about the thrust of Nevers, and questioned them with so much insistence about the thrust of Nevers, it was plain that he spoke from the brimmings of a wisdom richer than their own. Staupitz, who was in some sense a son of Paris, if only an adopted son, and that, indeed, by process of self-adoption, knew enough of Olympian matters to be aware that there was an illustrious gentleman that was Duke of Nevers, whom he was equally willing to aid with his sword or slay with his sword, if occasion served. Now occasion seemed to demand that Staupitz should follow the latter course. He was employed to kill somebody, and Æsop had assured him that this somebody was Louis, Duke de Nevers. Staupitz had not cared who it was; it was all one to him, but honestly he was troubled now by the patent trouble of Cocardasse and his ominous mutterings about the thrust of Nevers.

Passepoil broke the silence, surveying the puzzled faces around him. "No wonder there’s such a crowd of us." And for the first time there was something like the sound of audacity in his voice and a glance of audacity on his visage.

"Faith," said Cocardasse, emphatically, "I’d rather face an army than face Louis de Nevers."

Again there was a silence. The gentlemen of the sword seemed to be at a loss for conversation. Again Passepoil broke the silence, this time with a question: "Why are we after Louis de Nevers?"

Nobody seemed to be able to answer him. Even Staupitz, who was responsible to the others for this gathering of the company, was baffled. He had been told to supply nine swords, and he had supplied them. He had been told by his employer the purpose for which the nine swords were wanted—he had been told by Æsop against whom those nine swords were to be drawn—and that was the extent of his knowledge. This time the hunchback, in his favorite character of know-all, took the lead. He put his book in his pocket, as if he perceived that further study was to be denied him that afternoon, with so much noise and bustle of curiosity about him, and rose from his chair. Holding his long rapier behind his back with both his hands, he advanced into the middle of the room, where he proceeded to harangue his fellow-guardsmen.

"I can tell you," he said, harshly, "if you would care to hear the story."

Now bravos, swashbucklers, spadassins, and such soldiers of fortune are like children in this regard—as indeed in many another—that they love a good yarn well spun. If something in the dominating, masterful manner of Æsop compelled their attention, something also in the malicious smile that twitched his lips seemed to promise plenitude of entertainment. A grave quiet settled upon the ragamuffins, their sunburned faces were turned eagerly towards the hunchback, their wild eyes studied his mocking face; they waited in patience upon his pleasure. Pleased with the humility of his audience, Æsop began his narrative.

"There are," he said, "now living three noble gentlemen in the first flush of youth, in the first flight of greatness, young, handsome, brilliant, more like brothers than friends. They are known in the noble world of the court as the three Louis, because by a curious chance each of these splendid gentlemen carries Louis for a Christian name. Humorists have been known to speak of them as the three Louis d’or. The first is none other than our good king’s person, Louis of Bourbon, thirteenth monarch of his name; the second is Louis, Duke of Nevers; the third is his cousin, Louis of Mantua, Prince of Gonzague."

He paused for a moment, looking with the satisfaction of a tale-teller at the expectant faces before him, and as he paused an approving murmur from his audience urged him to continue. Æsop resumed his narration.

"You will ask how the Italianate Mantuan comes to be a cousin of our French Nevers, and I will tell you. Nevers’s father, Louis de Nevers, the twelfth duke, had a very beautiful sister, who was foolish enough, or wise enough, as you may choose to take it, to fall in love with a needy Italian nobleman that came adventuring to Paris in the hope of making a rich marriage. He made a rich marriage, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he thought he made a rich marriage. He married Mademoiselle de Nevers."

Again Æsop halted, employing one of the familiar devices of rhetoricians, who lure their hearers to keener interest by such judicious pauses in the course of their exposition. The listening ruffians were as attentive as babes at a day-school, and Æsop, with a hideous distortion of his features, which he intended for a pleased smile, went on with his story:

"Mademoiselle de Nevers had some fortune of her own, of course, but it was not large; it was not the feast for which the amative Mantuan had hungered. The Nevers’s fortune was in the duke’s hands, and remained in the duke’s hands, for the duke married at much the same time as his sister; and the duke’s wife and Gonzague’s wife were brought to bed much about the same time, and each bore a son, and each son was named Louis after the twelfth duke, out of the affection his wife bore him, out of the affection his sister bore him, and out of the affection that sister’s Mantuan husband pretended, in his sly Italian manner, to bear him."

A belated patriotism stirring vaguely in Faenza’s muddled mind tempted him to resent the hunch-back’s slights upon the land which had been unlucky enough to mother him.

"All men of Italy are not knaves," he growled, huskily, and, half rising from his seat with crimsoned visage, he was busying himself to say more, when Staupitz, who was as interested as the others in Master Æsop’s scandalous chronicle, clapped one bear’s paw on Faenza’s shoulder and another bear’s paw across Faenza’s mouth, and thus forced him at once, by sheer effort of brute strength, to a sitting posture and to silence. This action on the part of the man whom for the time being he had consented to accept as his general, combined with the cold glance of cruelty and scorn which Æsop gave him, served to cool Faenza’s hot blood. He heard Æsop say, dryly, "Some men of Italy are fools," and might perchance have flamed again, to his misluck, but that Staupitz, breathing thickly in his ear, whispered: "Idiot, he mocks a Mantuan. Are not you Naples born and bred?" Faenza, recovering his composure, resolved himself swiftly from an Italian in general to a Neapolitan in particular, with a clannish antagonism to alien states. He spat upon the floor. "Damn all Mantuans!" he muttered, and did no more to interrupt the flow of Æsop’s discourse.

"As I was saying, this princeling of Gonzague affected a great show of friendship for his ducal brother of Nevers, and this same friendship he left—it was, indeed, wellnigh all he had to leave—to his only son and only child, the present prince of Gonzague."

He made a momentary halt, as if he were observing curiously the effect of his words upon his hearers, then resumed:

"The young Louis de Gonzague and the young Louis de Nevers were almost of an age. Each was an only child, each was an only son, each was clever, each was courageous, each was comely, each was the chosen heart’s friend of a namesake king, each was much a lover of ladies, each was much loved by ladies."

Æsop grinned hideously as he said these words, and his left hand fumbled lovingly at the little volume that lay hid in the breast of his doublet, but he did not delay the flow of his words.

"The chief difference between the two young men who were bound so closely by ties of blood and yet more closely by ties of personal affection was that while Louis de Nevers was the heir to all the treasures of his house, Louis of Gonzague was heir to little more than a rotting palace and a hollow title. And yet, by the irony of nature that seemed to deny long life to any of the stock of Nevers, Louis de Gonzague was the next of kin to his cousin, and the heir to all his wealth if by any ill chance the dear young duke should die unmarried."

Here Æsop deliberately shut his mouth for several seconds, while the listening bandits, persuaded that some thrilling news was toward, nudged each other with their elbows and riddled the watchful hunchback with imploring glances that entreated him to proceed. Thus mutely importuned, Æsop opened his mouth again:

"But the difference in the youths’ fortunes never made any difference in their friendship. The purse of the rich Nevers was always open to the fingers of the poor Gonzague, and the poor Gonzague had always too true an appreciation of the meaning of friendship to deny his heart’s brother the privilege of ministering to his needs. And as the young Nevers did not hint at the slightest inclination to marry and settle down, but always declared himself and approved himself the most vagrant of lovers and the most frivolous of libertines, there seemed no reason for the good Gonzague to be uneasy as to his possible heritage. Moreover, the young Duke of Nevers was something delicate of constitution, as it would seem, for all his skill as a soldier and swordsman and his fame as a lady’s man. Once when he was the guest of his cousin of Gonzague in Mantua he fell ill of a strange fever that came near to ending his days, and was only saved by his French physician, who tended him day and night and took him back to France in the first dawn of his convalescence."

Æsop stopped and blinked at his hearers viciously, looking like some school-master that wonders how much or how little of what he has been saying his pupils have understood. Cocardasse was the first to show intelligence and to give it tongue.

"I’ll wager," he cried, and swore a great Gascon oath, "that I can hazard a pretty guess as to the name of our employer in to-night’s work."

Æsop leered at him with a pitying benignity.

"You were always a great brain for deduction, friend Cocardasse," he said. "And who should you say was the honest gentleman who wanted our swords for this present business?"

"Why," answered Cocardasse, shaking his head gloomily, "though I hate to think it, and hate to say it, it seems to me that the man who has most to gain from this little meeting and its inevitable result is none other than the third Louis, your Italian of Gonzague."

Æsop nodded, and a ferocious smile illuminated his evil face.

"You have come to a very creditable conclusion, friend Cocardasse. It looks very much as if Jonathan wanted to kill David, as if Patroclus yearned to slaughter Achilles, as if Pythias wanted to extinguish Damon."

Master Æsop prided himself upon his scholarship and his felicity in classical allusion—a felicity wholly wasted upon his present audience.

Cocardasse was still curious. "Why does Louis de Gonzague want to kill his friend, Louis of Nevers, just at this particular moment, and why here in this heaven-forgotten hole of a place, in this heaven-forgotten corner of the world?"

Æsop explained: "Because Louis de Gonzague, having tried once, with good reason, and failed, tries again with better reason and means to succeed this time, believing much steel to do better than a little poison. Because, in a few words, Louis de Gonzague wants to marry the beautiful Gabrielle, daughter of old Caylus of the castle there, who is wealthy, too."

Passepoil, who was always interested in affairs of the heart, put in his word. "Why doesn’t he marry her?"

Æsop was ready to explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylus is already secretly married to Louis de Nevers. They were married one year ago in the chapel of Caylus, and the only witnesses were Louis de Gonzague and his factotum, Monsieur Peyrolles, who has summoned us to this tryst."

"Why were they secretly married?" asked the amorous Passepoil.

Æsop answered him: "An old family feud between the houses of Nevers and Caylus. The marquis would rather kill his daughter than let her marry Louis de Nevers. So they were wedded secretly, without his knowledge, and Louis de Gonzague, that could deny his dear friend and cousin, Louis de Nevers, nothing, helped him to his wife."

"That was generous, at least," Passepoil sighed.

Æsop sneered. "He hoped, as he believed with reason, that there would be no issue of the marriage, and that by-and-by he would come to what he called his own. But three months ago a daughter was born to the nuptials of Nevers, and that is why we are here to-night. Monsieur Peyrolles would pretend that it is the old marquis who is using us, the old marquis who is suspicious of an amour between his daughter and Nevers. But I know better."

"How do you know all this?" Cocardasse inquired.

Æsop shrugged his shoulders. "My good fellow," he said, "it is my business to know everything that is worth knowing in my trade. There are very few noble houses in France that can hope to hold any secrets from me. You may take my word for it—that is how matters stand."

Staupitz and his five swordsmen sat silent and puzzled, leaving the ball of conversation to be tossed between Cocardasse, Passepoil, and Æsop.

Cocardasse spoke next: "An ugly job. There’s only one man alive to match Louis de Nevers."

Something almost approaching a human smile distorted the wrinkled face of Æsop and made it appear more than usually repulsive. "You mean me," he said, and the smirk deepened, only to dissipate quickly as Cocardasse replied:

"Devil a bit. I mean the little Parisian, Henri de Lagardere."

"The best swordsman in Paris!" Passepoil cried, enthusiastically.

"The best swordsman in France!" Cocardasse shouted.

Passepoil commented again: "The best swordsman in Europe."

Cocardasse, not to be outdone, put the final touch to the picture: "The best swordsman in the world."

The name of Lagardere seemed to make a marked impression upon the company. Every man seemed to have his contribution to make to the history of the little Parisian.

Faenza was the first to speak.

"I met your Lagardere once," he said, "at a fencing-school in Milan, where half a dozen French gentlemen met half a dozen gentlemen of my nationality in a match to test the merits of the French and Italian methods of fence. This Lagardere of yours was the only one whom I had any difficulty in overcoming."

Cocardasse gave an ironic snort. It was evident that he did not in the least believe the latter part of Faenza’s narrative. Joel de Jurgan took up the thread of reminiscence.

"If your Lagardere be the same as the man I am thinking of," he said, "I came across him a couple of years ago at the fair of Neuilly. We had a passage of arms, and I think I gave him a cut on the head, but it took me some time, I promise you."

Cocardasse glared at the speaker, but said nothing, though the word "liar" was plainly expressed in his scornful glance. Joel, impressed by his angry face, hastened to add, with the air of one that praises an adversary in the handsomest manner, "I swear he was the best fellow, second to myself, that I ever met with the rapier."

"I have met him," grunted Staupitz. "He touched me once in a bout of twelve points. That was a triumph for him, to my thinking."

Pepe added: "He fought with me once in Madrid, and got off without a scratch. That says a good deal for his skill, I’m thinking."

Saldagno and Pinto were silent. They looked curiously at Pepe, but they nodded their heads approvingly.

Thus each of the bravos had his eager tale to tell, and would have told more but that Cocardasse waved them into silence with his large hand. "There is only one Lagardere," he said, and looked as if the subject were ended.

Æsop yawned. "I should like to meet your Lagardere."

Cocardasse eyed him ironically. "Sword in hand?" he questioned. "When that day comes, pray for your soul."

Æsop shrugged his shoulders, and with an air of indifference produced a watch and consulted its dial. "Friends," he said, "this is the hour fixed for the arrival of Monsieur Peyrolles, and I think I hear footsteps in the passage."

Instantly the Gascon seemed animated by a hurried purpose. He sprang to Staupitz’s side, and, catching him by the shoulder, shook him vehemently. "We must be well paid to face the thrust of Nevers. Let me bargain for you. Back me up, and those that are alive to-night will have money in pocket to-morrow."