"It was about a league from the hamlet of Urdoz that my brother and his wife found themselves entirely alone on a rocky road skirting a very deep precipice. The road was winding and the ascent so steep, that the horse balked for a moment, and my brother, fearing that he would back into the ravine, hastily alighted and lifted his wife out of the wagon. It was very warm, so he pointed out a grove of firs ahead of them where she could find shelter from the sun, and she walked thither slowly while he gave the horse an opportunity to breathe."
"Did the lady see her husband killed?"
"No! she had just turned a little shoulder of the mountain when the disaster occurred. It was God's will that the child she bore should be saved; for, if the assassins had seen her they would not have spared her."
"In that case who can say how your brother died?"
"Another woman whom chance had brought thither, who was hidden behind a rock, and who had no time to call for aid, the horrible crime was committed so quickly. My brother was trying to urge the horse forward when the assassins overtook him. The youngest dismounted, saying with hypocritical courtesy:
"'Why, your horse is foundered, my poor man! Don't you need help?'
"The old cutthroat who followed him also dismounted, and they both approached my brother as if they really intended to put their shoulders to the wheel; he had no suspicion of them, and at the same instant the witness whom heaven had placed there saw him totter and fall at full length between the wheels, without a cry to indicate that he had been struck. That dagger had been buried in his heart up to the hilt, by a hand too well skilled in its use."
"Then you do not know which of the two, whether the master or the servant, dealt the blow? You say that the master was very young; it is hardly conceivable that it was he."
"It matters little, messire. I deem them equally vile; for the gentleman behaved exactly as the servant did. He jumped into the wagon without taking time to remove the knife, he was in such frantic haste to steal the two boxes. He tossed them to his companion, who put them under his cloak, and they both fled, retracing their steps, spurred on, not by remorse and shame, human sentiments which they were incapable of feeling, but by fear of the scourge and the rack, which are the just reward and the end of such villainy!"
"You lie, monsieur!" cried D'Alvimar, springing to his feet, beside himself and deathly pale with rage. "The scourge and the rack—You lie in your throat! and you shall give me satisfaction!"