The lieutenant bowed, and allowed him to pass without the least objection.
Gabriel and Paré entered the hall.
The attention of all present was too deeply absorbed in the sad business in hand to notice their arrival.
It was truly a harrowing and fearful sight which was presented to their gaze.
In the centre of the hall, oil a camp bed, lay the Duc de Guise, motionless and unconscious, the blood streaming from his head.
His face was pierced from side to side; the iron head of the lance, having entered the cheek beneath the right eye, had passed through his head to that portion of the neck immediately below the left ear, and the broken fragment projected half a foot from the gaping wound, which was frightful to look upon.
Around the bed were grouped some ten or twelve physicians and surgeons, utterly bewildered amid the general despair.
They were doing nothing whatever beyond looking on and talking.
Just as Gabriel came in with Ambroise Paré, one of them was saying aloud,—
"Thus, having consulted together, we are under the painful necessity of announcing our unanimous opinion that Monsieur le Duc de Guise is mortally wounded, beyond hope of recovery: for in order to afford any chance of saving his life, the fragment of the lance must be withdrawn from the wound, and to extract it would be to kill Monseigneur beyond peradventure."