This was not combat; it was butchery. M. Étienne, with a little moan, lifted his eyes for the first time from his assailant to the turret window. In the same instant I felt the door behind us give. Throwing my whole weight upon it, I seized M. Étienne and pulled him over the threshold. Some one inside slammed the door to, just as the Spaniard hurled himself against it.
XX
"On guard, monsieur."
e found ourselves in a narrow panelled passageway, lighted by a flickering oil-lamp pendent from a bracket. Confronting us was our preserver—a little old lady in black velvet, leaning back in chuckling triumph against the shot bolts.
She was very small and very old. Her figure was bent and shrunken, a pitiful little bag of bones in a rich dress; her hair was as white as her ruff; her skin as yellow and dry as parchment, furrowed with a thousand wrinkles; but her black eyes sparkled like a girl's.
"I did not mean to let my nightingale's throat be slit," she cried in a shrill voice quavering like a young child's. "I have listened to your singing many a night, monsieur; I was glad to-night to find the nightingale back again. When I saw that crew rush at you, I said I would save you if only you would put your back to my door. Monsieur, you are a young man of intelligence."
"I am a young man of amazing good fortune, madame," M. Étienne replied, with his handsomest bow, sheathing his wet blade. "I owe you a debt of gratitude which is ill repaid in the base coin of bringing trouble to this house."
"Not at all—not at all!" she protested with animation. "No one is likely to molest this house. It is the dwelling of M. Ferou."