paced together up and down the courtyard while the darkness gathered and the mobile still howled. "What will your King be like? said Halifax.

"He is at least neither fool nor coward."

"I was wondering if he is grateful," said Halifax smiling; and Beaujeu, who intended that his King should be grateful, smiled also.

Through the night, over the heaving dark water, a barge gay with bright colour and gilded carving came to the Palace stairs. Across the courtyard came a little company all muffled from knee to chin. In the midst was the King, hurrying in quick short steps with downcast head. The two tall gentlemen, watching curiously, lifted their hats as he passed. But he saw nothing, and stumbled down the steps, and catching at the outstretched hands was dragged into the barge. His servants sprang aboard. Slowly the great hull swung out on the ebb-tide and vanished into the dark.

M. de Beaujeu was back again in a foul little room, saw again a yellow haggard face -then the yells of a crowd rang again in his ears. In a moment my Lord Halifax turned to him smiling: "Is revenge sweet?" Halifax asked.

And M. de Beaujeu smiled back.

CHAPTER XL

M. DE BEAUJEU RETURNS IN TRIUMPH

So M. de Beaujeu went home rejoicing. He had paid all debts. He had kept his word. He had cast out one King and made another. The throne (by the grace of M. de Beaujeu) awaited the ascent of His Highness of Orange. By the grace of M. de Beaujeu-his Asthmatic Highness should not forget that.

On that chill winter's night M. de Beaujeu had his hour of triumph. Shouldering slowly through the crowd down Charing Cross and the Strand he smiled amiably on sleek citizens and greasy bullies when they howled in his ear. They had done his work very well. It would have been churlish to complain.

In this genial temper he came out of the crowd to the silence and emptiness of Essex Street and swung on down the hill with a freer step. Sudden a file of men leapt out of the wall. There was never a challenge, never a word, but rapiers shot at him gleaming through the gloom. Aside and back Beaujeu sprang and cast off his cloak and whirled it whizzing round in the air and flicked out his sword. They pressed on, still without a cry or an oath. They tried to lunge through the swing of the cloak, and Beaujeu's darting flickering point and his long arm sent one to

fall vomiting blood across the swords of his friends.

Then as they started back, "Points, boys, points," muttered Captain Hagan hoarsely. It was the first word spoken. The four that were left rushed upon him with oaths.

Beaujeu sprang back up the hill shouting lustily, "Dubois! Dubois!" and shaking his cloak he caught in it two lunging swords and tangled them, and, snatching, held the pair. His own blade clashed and scraped with Mr O'Gorman's, and Captain Hagan ran at him, shortening his sword to stab. But Beaujeu sprang aside, holding still to the captive blades, and Captain Hagan's hard-driven thrust went home upon the wall and his rapier snapped short at the sword hilt. "'Od rot ye!" cried Captain Hagan. "'Od burn ye!"

And Beaujeu lurched on the greasy hill feinting with Mr O'Gorman and wrenching at the two swords that he held in his cloak, and muttered oaths and hard breathing sounded with the scrape of stone and heel. A long lunge sent Mr O'Gorman cursing back upon Captain Hagan, and in that instant of respite Beaujeu dropped his elbow, and in the dark stabbed upward as a man stabs with a dagger-twice. And the two men whose blades he held shrieked shrill like women and reeled away and fell.

Flinging their swords and his cloak away Beaujeu sprang in upon Mr O'Gorman and engaged. Dubois came running yelling, "Rascal! Assassin! Coquin! Rascal! and flourishing Beaujeu's whip aloft. He flung himself on

Captain Hagan, who caught his whip hand and closed.

From the open doorway Mistress Nancy Leigh cried shrill, "A Papist! A Papist! 'Prentices!'

A minute Beaujeu and O'Gorman fenced, and O'Gorman steadily blasphemed, and Dubois and Hagan swung wrestling hither and thither and Nancy ran out in the street and cried "Prentices, prentices, a Papist!" Then Beaujeu's wet sword shot through O'Gorman's arm and Mr O'Gorman dropped his sword with a yell. Beaujeu glanced round. Captain Hagan had wrenched the whip from Dubois and his arm was aloft to strike. Beaujeu sprang at him, but Hagan slashed at his eyes, and Beaujeu, thrusting blindly, missed him and stumbled forward and fell and lost his sword. Then, wild with pain and unseeing, flung himself on Hagan and clipped the man in his arms and wrenched him from Dubois, who was cast

away staggering and fell. Beaujeu swung Captain Hagan off his feet, and while he kicked and struck frenzied dashed him against the wall. Again and again the lean head was crashed upon the stones, but Captain Hagan had ceased to strive, and after one groan he made no sound more, and Beaujeu's blind face was spattered with his blood. Still in the madness of pain and fight Beaujeu swung the limp body hither and thither, and Mr O'Gorman stole up behind swinging a broken rapier in his hand.

But again Nancy had cried to the 'prentices, and a score brisk boys of the Strand came pelting down the street twirling their staves by

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the middle. "There! there!" cried Nancy wildly. "Tis a Huguenot butchered by Irish Papists." And as Mr O'Gorman swung up his broken sword to dash the hilt down on Beaujeu's head, a triplet of cudgels crashed upon his own. But Mr O'Gorman had smitten, and Beaujeu fell down upon Captain Hagan thudding.

Nancy ran to him and fell on her knees in the blood by his side and tried to loose him from Captain Hagan, and the 'prentices panting leant on each other and peered round at the dead. "By the Bar, boys!" says one, "'tis a graveyard, no less.

Nancy strove in vain with those bloody linked fingers, and she turned white in the gloom and Oh, will you not help me?" she cried.

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""Tis a Huguenot gentleman, a friend to the Prince, and these bloody Irish

"'Od rot all Irish," cried the lads, crowding round her. "Let be, mistress; which be the Oranger?" She showed them, and two sturdy lads wrenched Beaujeu's writhen gripe apart and drew him from his foe and lifted him. "One to five! Burn me!" says one as they moved off with their burden. "One to five! Now, rot me! Sure, he fought a good fight and he died a good death."

Dubois was sitting up on the stones and staring wildly round. He rose tottering and reeled to his master's dripping sword and took it and followed.

So M. de Beaujeu was borne in triumph home.