'She does—having frequently seen it at Paris.'

'And your signature too, probably?'

'Yes.'

'Then take pen and ink, and write after me.'

'Excuse me, M. le Comte,' said I, trembling with exultation, as I saw a brigade of French artillery, consisting of ten pieces of cannon, on field carriages, with tumbrils and waggons, each drawn by four horses, pass at full gallop along the green brow of the opposite hill, while the head of a column of infantry appeared beyond it, with pikes glittering and standards waving. Then the ordnance were wheeled into position, as the cannoniers and fire-casters sprang from their seats, unlimbered and proceeded to load. 'Excuse me,' I continued, 'but there are some features in yonder landscape so very interesting that I must look for a moment.'

'Yonder preparations are of no moment to you,' said De Bitche, stamping his foot and growing pale with anger, as he drew a pistol from his belt and cocked it, 'take up that pen and write as I dictate, or'—and he swore an oath too frightful for me to repeat—'I will lay you, where I have laid many a better man,—dead at my feet.'

I glanced at the Count and measured his strength with my own, which it far surpassed, for his proportions and muscles were gigantic; I measured too the distance that lay between us; by one bound I could have cleared it, but a bullet would reach me with the rapidity of light. A contest with a man more powerful than myself by one half, and one who was so well armed, while I, faint with toil, was quite defenceless, would have been recklessly to throw away all chance of safety and escape; and now, while the roar of falconets on the bartizan overhead shook the keep from cope to groundstone while the French cannon opened from the brow of the opposite hill, I dipped the pen in the ink, and gave the Count a furious, glance to which he replied by an insolent laugh, and pointing with the muzzle of his loaded pistol to a sheet of fine white Dutch paper, said—

'Begin, monsieur, for I am leaving M. Schreckhorn alone to contend with those friends of yours, the feather-bed soldiers of Louis XIII. Begin thus—

'My dear Mademoiselle de Lorraine—'

Curious to learn what he had in view, and moreover to gain time, I slowly wrote the preamble, and he continued to dictate, amid the concussion of the adverse artillery, which shook the old feudal castle to its basement.