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244 king's cell. But before anything happened on my side of the moat I saw five or six men round young Rupert in the embrasure of madame's window. Three or four times he lunged with incomparable dash and dexterity. For an instant they fell back, leaving a ring round him. He leaped on the parapet of the window, laughing as he leaped, and waving his sword in his hand. He was drunk with blood, and he laughed again wildly as he flung himself headlong into the moat.

What became of him then? I did not see: for as he leaped, De Gautet's lean face looked out through the door by me, and without a second's hesitation I struck at him with all the strength God had given me, and he fell dead in the doorway without a word or a groan. I dropped on my knees by him. Where were the keys? I found myself muttering: "The keys, man, the keys!" as though he had been yet alive and could listen; and when I could not find them I—God forgive me!—I believe I struck a dead man's face.

At last I had them. There were but three, Seizing the largest, I felt the lock of the door that