"Here I am, your excellency. It is not for me to boast, but I am as handy a man with a lancet as with a rapier, and it was an evil day for some sick folk when I first took to buff and bandolier. Which would you have me look to?"
"This one in the road."
The trooper bent over Amos Green. "He is not long for this world," said he. "I can tell it by the catch of his breath."
"And what is his injury?"
"A subluxation of the epigastrium. Ah, the words of learning will still come to my tongue, but it is hard to put into common terms. Methinks that it were well for me to pass my dagger through his throat, for his end is very near."
"Not for your life!" cried the leader. "If he die without wound, they cannot lay it to our charge. Turn now to the other."
The man bent over De Catinat, and placed his hand upon his heart. As he did so the soldier heaved a long sigh, opened his eyes, and gazed about him with the face of one who knows neither where he is nor how he came there. De Vivonne, who had drawn his hat down over his eyes, and muffled the lower part of his face in his mantle, took out his flask, and poured a little of the contents down the injured man's throat. In an instant a dash of colour had come back into the guardsman's bloodless cheeks, and the light of memory into his eyes. He struggled up on to his feet, and strove furiously to push away those who held him. But his head still swam, and he could scarce hold himself erect.
"I must to Paris!" he gasped; "I must to Paris! It is the king's mission. You stop me at your peril!"
"He has no hurt save a scratch," said the ex-doctor.
"Then hold him fast. And first carry the dying man to the carriage."