"The Countess de Barmont?" the Duke repeated, contemptuously.
"It is true," the other remarked, ironically; "I forget that you expect at any moment a dispensation from the Court of Home, which will declare my marriage null and void, and allow you to give your daughter to the man whose credit has caused you to be nominated Viceroy of New Spain."
"Sir!" the Duke exclaimed.
"What, do you pretend I am in error? No, no, my lord Duke, my spies are as good as yours—I am well served, believe me: thank heaven I have arrived in time to prevent it. Make way there!" he said, repulsing by a gesture the two gentlemen who opposed his passage—"I am your husband, madam; follow me, I shall be able to protect you."
The two young men, leaving their sister, who was in a semi-fainting state, rushed on the Count, and both buffeted him in the face with their gloves, while drawing their swords.
The Count turned fearfully pale at this cruel insult; he uttered a wild beast yell, and unsheathed.
The valets, held in check by the two sailors, had not made a movement.
The Duke rushed between the three men, who were ready for the assault.
"Count," he said, coolly, to the younger of his sons, "leave to your brother the duty of chastising this man."
"Thanks, father," the elder answered, as he fell on guard, while his younger brother lowered the point of his sword, and fell back a pace.
Doña Clara was lying motionless on the floor.
At the first attack the two enemies engaged their swords up to their guard, and then, as if of common accord, each retreated a step.
There was something sinister in the appearance of this inn room at the moment.
This woman, who lay writhing on the floor, suffering from a horrible nervous crisis, and no one dreaming of succouring her.
This old man, with frowning brow, and features contracted by pain, witnessing with apparent stoicism this duel between his elder son and his son-in-law, while his younger son was biting his lips with fury because he could not assist his brother; these sailors, with pistols at the breasts of the lackeys, who were palsied with terror; and in the centre of the room, scarce lighted by a few smoking candles, these two men, sword in hand, watching like two tigers the moment to slay each other.
The combat was not long; too great a hatred animated the two adversaries for them to lose time in feeling each other's strength. The Duke's son, more impatient than the Count, made thrust on thrust, which the other had great difficulty in parrying; at length, the young man feeling himself too deeply engaged, tried to make a second backward step, but his foot slipped on the boards, and he involuntarily raised his sword; at the same moment the Count liberated his blade by a movement rapid as thought, and his sword entirely disappeared in his adversary's chest; then he leaped back to avoid the back thrust, and fell on guard again.
But it was all over with the young man; he rolled his haggard eyes twice or thrice, stretched out his arms, while letting go his sword, and fell his whole length on the floor, without uttering a word.
He was dead.
"Assassin!" his brother screamed, as he rushed sword in hand on the Count.
"Traitor!" the latter replied, as he parried the thrust, and sent the other's sword flying to the ceiling.
"Stay, stay!" the Duke cried, as he rushed half mad with grief between the two men, who had seized each other round the waist, and had both drawn their daggers.
But this tardy interference was useless; the Count, who was endowed with a far from common strength, had easily succeeded in freeing himself from the young man's grasp, and had thrown him on the ground, where he held him by placing his knee on his chest.
All at once a mighty rumour of arms and horses was heard in the house, and the hurried steps of several men hurrying up the stairs became audible.
"Ah!" the Duke exclaimed, with a ferocious joy, "I believe my vengeance is at hand, at last!"
The Count, not deigning to reply to his enemy, turned to the sailors.
"Be off, my lads!" he shouted in a voice of thunder.
They hesitated.
"He goes if you wish to save me," he added.
"Boarders away!" Michael yelled, as he dragged away his comrade; and the two men seizing their musquetoons by the barrel, as if to use them as clubs in case of need, and to clear the way, rushed into the passage when they disappeared.
The Count listened anxiously, he heard oaths and the sound of an obstinate struggle; then, at the expiration of a moment, a distant cry, that summons which sailors know so well, reached him.
Then his face grew calmer, he returned his sword to its sheath and coolly awaited the newcomers, muttering to himself—
"They have escaped, one chance is left me."
CHAPTER III.
THE ARREST.
Almost at the same moment ten or twelve men burst into the room rather than entered it, the noise that continued outside let it be guessed that a great number of others was standing on the stairs and in the passages, ready, were it required, to come to the assistance of the others.
All these men were armed, and it was easy to recognise them at once as guards of the King, or rather of His Eminence the Cardinal.
Only two of them, with crafty looks and squinting eyes, dressed in black like ushers, had no visible weapons; these, in all probability were more to be feared than the others, for beneath their feline obsequiousness they doubtless concealed an implacable will to do evil.
One of these two men held some papers in his right hand, he advanced two or three paces, cast a suspicious glance around him, and then took off his cap with a courteous bow.
"In the King's name! gentleman," he said in a quick sharp voice.
"What do you want?" the Count de Barmont asked, advancing resolutely towards him.
At this movement, which he took for a hostile demonstration, the man in black recoiled with an ill-disguised start of terror, but feeling himself backed up by his acolytes, he at once resumed his coolness, and answered with a smile of evil augury—
"Ah! Ah! The Count Ludovic de Barmont, I believe," he remarked with an ironical bow.
"Yes, sir," the gentleman replied haughtily, "I am the Count de Barmont."
"Captain in the navy," the man in black imperturbably added, "at present, commanding His Majesty's, frigate The Erigone."
"As I told you, sir, I am the person you are in search of," the Count added.
"It is really with you that I have to deal, my lord," he replied, as he drew himself up. "S'death, my good gentleman, you are not easy to catch up; I have been running after you for a week, and was almost despairing about having the honour of a meeting."
All this was said with an obsequious air, a honeyed voice, and with a sweet smile, sufficient to exasperate a saint, and much more the person whom the strange man was addressing, and who was endowed with anything but a placable character.
"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot passionately; "Are we to have much more of this?"
"Patience, my good sir," he replied in the same placid tone; "patience, good Heaven, how quick you are!" then after taking a glance at the papers he held in his hand, "Since by your own confession you allow yourself to be really Count Ludovic de Barmont, captain commanding His Majesty's frigate Erigone, by