However, I did not give in without a desperate struggle. From Tom Kirkton, who in his wilder days had practised at Marybone and Hockly-in-the-Hole, I had picked up a little of the good old English science of self-defence, so I struck out right and left, and knocked over the crapauds like ninepins, till the butt-end of a musket laid me on the field of battle, and for a time I thought all was over.
I was now rifled. The two louis of kind Boisguiller were speedily appropriated. The pass of the Duc de Broglie and the little laced handkerchief of Aurora, which I still preserved as a souvenir of my only relative, were handed to the count. He laughed at the first, but the sight of the second transported him with a fury only equal to that of the Moor on the loss of that important handkerchief which the Egyptian to his mother gave, and which had "magic in the web of it."
"Count Bourgneuf," I exclaimed, resolutely, on recovering my breath, for timidity, I found, would be of little avail here; "you have in your hand the signed passport of the Duc de Broglie; how dare you thus to violate it?"
"Dare—parbleu! from whom did you receive it?"
"From yourself, in presence of M. Monjoy and the Chevalier de Boisguiller."
"Signed, you say?"
"Yes—look at it."
"I have looked; but it bears a signature Monseigneur de Broglie would scarcely recognise, and which no French soldier is bound to respect."
"A forgery! Mean you to say that it is a forgery of yours?" I exclaimed, furiously.
"Term it as you please," said he, tearing the paper to pieces; "'tis thus that I respect it."