Glory be! her protector was parrying the Marquis’ wild thrusts while he himself bided an opening. It came with a suddenness as dramatic as the duel itself. A lunge of the villain had left his own side exposed. De Vaudrey sidestepped and as he did so 32 plunged his rapier between the ribs of the owner of Bel-Air.
The mortally stricken de Praille sank back against a marble bench. De Vaudrey scarcely glanced at him. Taking Henriette by the hand, he rushed with her up the staircase and out to liberty.
Before the Grand Seigneur’s cronies thought to avenge their master, they had passed the astonished servants, passed the minatory beggars at the gates, and hailing a fiacre were on their way to Paris.
CHAPTER VI
IN THE FROCHARDS’ DEN
One hundred and fifty years of outlawry had made the Frochard clan a wolfish breed; battening on crime, thievery and beggary. The head of the house had suffered the extreme penalty meted out to highwaymen. The precious young hopeful, Jacques, was a chip of the old block––possibly a shade more drunken and a shade less enterprising.
But the real masterful figure was the Widow Frochard, his mother, a hag whose street appearance nurses used to frighten naughty children. Hard masculine features, disheveled locks and piercing black eyes gave her a fearsome look enhanced by a very vigorous moustache, a huge wart near the mouth, the ear-hoops and tobacco pipe that she sported, and the miscellaneous mass of rags that constituted her costume.
In this menage of the begging Frochards, the crippled scissors-grinder Pierre was the only individual worth his salt, and he was 34 heartily despised by his brother Jacques and his mother.