have done was for love of your honor, whom we thought lost.”

“You are mad, gentlemen. Lost! Is a man like me to be lost? Am I not permitted to be absent, according to my pleasure, without giving formal notice? Do you, by chance, take me for a citizen from the city? Is a gentleman, my friend, my guest, to be besieged, entrapped, and threatened with death, because he is suspected? What signifies the word, suspected? Curse me if I don’t have every one of you shot like dogs, that the brave gentleman has left alive!

“General,” said Digby, piteously, “there were twenty-eight of us, and see, there are eight on the ground.”

“I authorize M. le Comte de la Fere to send the twenty to join the eight,” said Monk, stretching out his hand to Athos.