wringing his hands. “So you defend him! And I, who have sworn to take him dead or alive, I am dishonored — and by you!”

“Kill me!” replied Athos, uncovering his breast, “if your honor requires my death.”

“Oh! woe is me!

woe is me!” cried the lieutenant; “there’s only one man in the world who could stay my hand; by a fatality that very man bars my way. What shall I say to the cardinal?”

“You can tell him, sir,” answered a voice which was the voice of high command in the battle-field, “that he sent against me the only two men capable of getting the better of four men; of fighting man to man, without discomfiture, against the Comte de la Fere and the Chevalier d’Herblay,