"The muskets!" cried the chief.
"Before they are ready, you will be pierced through the heart," cried Chicot.
"Be firm, and I will aid you," cried a voice, which seemed to Chicot to come from heaven.
It was that of a fine young man, on a black horse. He had a pistol in each hand, and cried again to Chicot, "Stoop! morbleu, stoop!"
Chicot obeyed.
One pistol was fired, and a man rolled at Chicot's feet; then the second, and another man fell.
"Now we are two to two," cried Chicot; "generous young man, you take one, here is mine," and he rushed on the masked man, who defended himself as if used to arms.
The young man seized his opponent by the body, threw him down, and bound him with his belt. Chicot soon wounded his adversary, who was very corpulent, between the ribs; he fell, and Chicot, putting his foot on his sword to prevent him from using it, cut the strings of his mask.
"M. de Mayenne! ventre de biche, I thought so," said he.
The duke did not reply; he had fainted from the loss of blood and the weight of his fall. Chicot drew his dagger, and was about coolly to cut off his head, when his arm was seized by a grasp of iron, and a voice said: