"I have you now, accursed Huguenot! expect no mercy, as you had none for——"
Before concluding his sentence, he felt for the marquis's heart; then, raising the knife in the other hand, added:
"For my son's soul!"
The marquis, stunned by his fall, defended himself but feebly, and it was apparently all over with him, when Sancho felt upon his face two tiny, faltering hands, which suddenly tore his flesh savagely, so that he had to make a movement to rid himself of them.
Instantly a sudden thought led him to relax his hold of the marquis.
"The child first!" he cried.
But the words were forced back into his throat, and the thought interrupted in his brain by a terrible explosion.
Mario had followed the marquis. He had heard him fall. He had felt in the darkness Sancho's face. He had known from the feeling that it was not Bois-Doré's. He had placed against that rough, hairy skull the muzzle of a pistol snatched from Clindor as he passed, and had fired point-blank.
He had avenged his fathers death and saved his uncle's life.