An Enemy to the King | Page 6

arm.
"Peste!" he hissed, as he slowly scrambled to his feet. "I have broken
my arm!"
With his right arm hanging stiff by his side, and clutching its elbow
with his left hand, as if in great pain, he hastened away from the spot,
not having noticed me. I followed him.
After a second turn, the street crossed another. In the middle of the
open space at the junction, there stood a cross, as could be seen by the
moonlight that now came through an interval in the procession of
wind-driven clouds.
Just as the man with the hurt arm, who was slender, and had a dandified
walk, entered this open space, a gust of wind came into it with him; and
there came, also, from the other street, a robust gentleman of medium
height, holding his head high and walking briskly. Caught by the gust
of wind, my gentleman from the second story window ran precipitantly
into the other. The robust man was not sent backward an inch. He took
the shock of meeting with the firmness of an unyielding wall, so that
the slender gentleman rebounded. Each man uttered a brief oath, and
grasped his sword, the slender one forgetting the condition of his arm.
"Oh, it is you," said the robust man, in a virile voice, of which the tone
was now purposely offensive. "The wind blows fragile articles into
one's face to-night."
"It blows gentlemen into muck-heaps," responded the other, quickly.
The hearty gentleman gave a loud laugh, meant to aggravate the other's
anger, and then said:
"We do not need seconds, M. de Quelus," putting into his utterance of

the other's name a world of insult.
"Come on, then, M. Bussy d'Amboise," replied the other, pronouncing
the name only that he might, in return, hiss out the final syllable as if it
were the word for something filthy.
Both whipped out their swords, M. de Quelus now seemingly
unconscious of the pain in his arm.
I looked on from the shadow in which I had stopped, not having
followed De Quelus into the little open space. My interest in the
encounter was naturally the greater for having learned the names of the
antagonists. At La Tournoire I had heard enough of the court to know
that the Marquis de Quelus was the chief of the King's effeminate
chamberlains, whom he called his minions, and that Bussy d'Amboise
was the most redoubtable of the rufflers attached to the King's
discontented brother, the Duke of Anjou; and that between the dainty
gentlemen of the King and the bullying swordsmen of the Duke, there
was continual feud.
Bussy d'Amboise, disdaining even to remove his cloak, of which he
quickly gathered the end under his left arm, made two steps and a thrust
at De Quelus. The latter made what parade he could for a moment, so
that Bussy stepped back to try a feint. De Quelus, trying to raise his
sword a trifle higher, uttered an ejaculation of pain, and then dropped
the point. Bussy had already begun the motion of a lunge, which it was
too late to arrest, even if he had discovered that the other's arm was
injured and had disdained to profit by such an advantage. De Quelus
would have been pierced through had not I leaped forward with drawn
sword and, by a quick thrust, happened to strike Bussy's blade and
make it diverge from its course.
De Quelus jumped back on his side, as Bussy did on his. Both regarded
me with astonishment.
"Oh, ho, an ambush!" cried Bussy. "Then come on, all of you,
messieurs of the daubed face and painted beard! I shall not even call
my servants, who wait at the next corner."

And he made a lunge at me, which I diverted by a parry made on
instinct, not having had time to bring my mind to the direction of
matters. Bussy then stood back on guard.
"You lie," said De Quelus, vainly trying to find sufficient strength in
his arm to lift his sword. "I was alone. My servants are as near as yours,
yet I have not called. As for this gentleman, I never saw him before."
"That is true," I said, keeping up my guard, while Bussy stood with his
back to the cross, his brows knit in his effort to make out my features.
"Oh, very well," said Bussy. "I do not recognize him, but he is
evidently a gentleman in search of a quarrel, and I am disposed to be
accommodating."
He attacked me again, and I surprised myself, vastly, by being able to
resist the onslaughts of this, the most formidable swordsman at the
court of France. But I dared not hope for final victory. It did not even
occur to me as possible