And Nevers answered, quietly: "A scratch on the forehead."
As he saw Nevers lift his hand for a moment to the space between his eyes, Lagardere groaned to himself, "My damned fencing-lesson," and mentally promised to make his enemies pay for their readiness to learn. He had not long to wait for an opportunity.
The discomfited bravos were rapidly gathering together for a fresh attack. This time their leading spirit was no longer Staupitz, disagreeably conscious of the difficulties of the enterprise, but the hunchback Æsop, who seemed to burn with a passion for slaughter. Lagardere likened him in his mind to some ungainly, obscene bird of prey, as he loomed out of the mirk waving his gaunt arms and shrieking in his rage and hate. "Kill them! kill them!" he screamed, as he rushed across the intervening space, and the bravos, heartened by his frenzy of fight, streamed after him, flinging themselves desperately against the piled-up hay, only to meet again the irresistible weapons of the friends, and again to recoil before them. Nevers held his own on one side; Lagardere held his own on the other. Nevers delivered his thrust at Æsop, and for the second time that day the hunchback felt the prick of steel between his eyes and saved himself by springing backward, his blood’s fire suddenly turned to ice. Lagardere’s sword was like a living fire. "Look out, Staupitz! Take that, Pepe!" he cried, and wounded both men. Then, while the German and the Spaniard fell back swearing, he turned joyously to Nevers, for his quick ear caught the sound of galloping on the distant highway.
"Good cheer, brother! I hear horses. My men are coming. Lagardere! Lagardere!"
Nevers responded joyously, "I am here! Victory!"
By this time the ground was strewn with the dead and wounded of their assailants, and, save for the slight scratch on Nevers’s forehead, the defenders were unhurt. The galloping of horses was now distinctly heard, and the sound was as displeasing to the bravos as it was delightful to Lagardere.
Delightful, indeed, for the sake of his companion, whom he was so hot to save. Otherwise, Lagardere, so far as he had clearness enough to think coherently at all, thought that he had never lived, had never hoped to live, through moments so delightful. To be in the thick of such a brawl, to be fighting side by side with the best swordsman in all France against what might well be considered overwhelming odds, and to be working havoc and disaster among his antagonists, stirred Lagardere’s blood more blithely than ripe wine. He had fought good fights before now, but never such a fight as this, in the black and dark night, with the dim air thick with hostile swords, and the night wind singing songs of battle in his ears. To live like this was to be very much alive; this had a zest denied to any calmly planned duello; this had a poetry fiercer and finer than the shock of action in the daylit lanes of war.
He called merrily to the bravos to renew their assault, but the bravos hung back discouraged; even the murder-zeal of Æsop had flagged. Then, in an instant, the attacked became the attackers, on the impulse of Nevers. Shouting anew the motto of his house, "I am here!" he leaped lightly over the rampart of hay, soliciting the swords of his foemen. Lagardere followed his example in an instant, and the pair now carried the war into the enemies’ country, charging the staggered assassins, who scattered before them. Lagardere drove some half a dozen of the rogues, including Staupitz and the discomfited Æsop, towards the bridge. Nevers, nearer to the castle, struck down in quick succession two of the ruffians that were rash enough to stand their ground, and stood for the moment alone and unassailed, the master of his part of the field.
Noiselessly behind him the little postern of Caylus opened. Noiselessly two shadows emerged, both masked and both holding drawn swords. Though it was still all blackness under the walls of the castle, there was now a little light in the sky, where a pale moon swam like a golden ship through wave after wave of engulfing cloud. The pair paused for a moment, as if to make sure that indeed their auxiliaries were being routed. Then the foremost shadow glided quietly close to Nevers, where he stood flushed with victory.
"I am here!" Nevers cried, exulting, as he waved his conquering sword and looked in vain for an antagonist.