"Well, then," said Malemort, in a modest but unembarrassed tone, "will you be kind enough to say to my master, Monsieur d'Exmès, that if there is any fighting to-morrow, I am in perfectly fit condition to take part in it!"
"You fight to-morrow!" cried Ambroise Paré. "Ah! you must not think of it!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I can't help thinking of it," rejoined Malemort, sadly.
"My poor fellow," said the surgeon, "just remember that I order a week of perfect rest,—at least a week in bed, and a week of light diet!"
"Light diet, so far as food is concerned, if you please," said Malemort, "but not abstinence from battle, I beg you."
"You are insane!" resumed Ambroise Paré; "if you but raise your head, the fever will seize you, and you will be a dead man. I said a week, and I will not take off an hour."
"Oh!" roared Malemort, "in a week the siege will be at an end. I shall never get my fill of fighting."
"What a blood-thirsty fellow he is!" said the Duc de Guise, who had been listening to this singular dialogue.
"That is Malemort all over," said Gabriel, smiling; "and I beg you, Monseigneur, to give orders to have him taken to the hospital, and carefully watched there; for if he hears the noise of a mêlée, he is quite capable of trying to get out of bed, in spite of everything."
"Oh, well, that's a very simple matter," said the Duc de Guise. "Give orders yourself to his comrades to carry him there."