“Look you, sirs,” said Garnache, taking a firm stand, “I will engage in my boots and on this very spot or not at all. I have told you that I am in haste. As for the slipperiness of the ground, my opponent will run no greater risks than I. I am not the only impatient one. The spectators are beginning to jeer at us. We shall have every scullion in Grenoble presently saying that we are afraid of one another. Besides which, sirs, I think I am taking cold.”
“I am quite of monsieur’s mind, myself,” drawled Sanguinetti.
“You hear, sir,” exclaimed Courthon, turning to Gaubert. “You can scarce persist in finding objections now.”
“Why, since all are satisfied, so be it,” said Gaubert, with a shrug. “I sought to do the best for my principal. As it is, I wash my hands of all responsibility, and by all means let us engage, sirs.”
They disposed themselves accordingly, Gaubert engaging Courthon, on Garnache’s right hand, and Garnache himself falling on guard to receive the attack of Sanguinetti. The jeers and murmurs that had been rising from the ever-growing crowd that swarmed about the outskirts of the place fell silent as the clatter of meeting swords rang out at last. And then, scarce were they engaged when a voice arose, calling angrily:
“Hold, Sanguinetti! Wait!”
A big, broad-shouldered man, in a suit of homespun and a featherless hat, thrust his way rudely trough the crowd and broke into the space within the belt of trees. The combatants had fallen apart at this commanding cry, and the newcomer now dashed forward, flushed and out of breath as if with running.
“Vertudieu! Sanguinetti,” he swore, and his manner was half-angry, half-bantering; “do you call this friendship?”
“My dear Francois” returned the foreigner, “you arrive most inopportunely.”
“And is that all the greeting you have for me?”