Almost thrusting mademoiselle aside, Garnache stood out to face him, the flush of hot anger showing through the dye on his cheeks.
“My name,” said he, “is Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache, and my business now to make an end of one at least of this obscene brood of Condillac.”
And, without more ado, he caught up a chair and held it before him in readiness to receive the other’s onslaught.
But Marius hung back an instant—at first in sheer surprise, later in fear. He had some knowledge of the fellow’s methods. Even the sword he wielded gave him little confidence opposed to Garnache with a chair. He must have help. His eyes sought the door, measuring the distance. Ere he could reach it Garnache would cut him off. There was nothing for it but to attempt to drive the Parisian back. And so with a sudden rush he advanced to the attack. Garnache fell back and raised his chair, and in that instant mademoiselle once more intervened between them.
“Stand aside, mademoiselle,” cried Garnache, who now, grown cool, as was his way when once he was engaged, saw clearly through the purpose formed by Marius. “Stand aside, or we shall have him giving the alarm.”
He leapt clear of her to stop Marius’s sudden rush for the door. On the very threshold the young man was forced to turn and defend himself, lest his brains be dashed out by that ponderous weapon Garnache was handling with a rare facility. But the mischief was done, in that he had reached the threshold. Backing, he defended himself and gained the anteroom. Garnache followed, but the clumsy chair was defensive rather than offensive, and Marius’s sword meanwhile darted above it and below it, forcing him to keep a certain distance.
And now Marius raised his voice and shouted with all the power of his lungs:
“To me! To me! Fortunio! Abdon! To me, you dogs! I am beset.”
From the courtyard below rose an echo of his words, repeated in a shout by the sentinel, who had overheard them, and they caught the swift fall of the fellow’s feet as he ran for help. Furious, picturing to himself how the alarm would spread like a conflagration through the chateau, cursing his headstrong folly yet determined that Marius at least should not escape him, Garnache put forth his energies to hinder him from gaining the door that opened on to the stairs. From the doorway of the antechamber mademoiselle, with a white face and terrified eyes, watched the unequal combat and heard the shouts for help. Anon despair might whelm her at the thought of how they had lost their opportunity of escaping; but for the present she had no thought save for the life of that brave man who was defending himself with an unwieldy chair.
Garnache leapt suddenly aside to take his opponent in the flank and thus turn him from his backward progress towards the outer door. The manoeuvre succeeded, and gradually, always defending himself, Garnache circled farther round him until he was between Marius and the threshold.