United States or Denmark ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I am a citizen of Paris, and I have been cruelly wronged." "You seem a very worthy person. If you have indeed been wronged you shall have redress. What have you to complain of?" "Twenty of the Blue Dragoons of Languedoc are quartered in my house, with Captain Dalbert at their head.
His troopers had released their victim, and stood panting in a line, while the young man leaned against the wall, brushing the dust from his black coat, and looking from his rescuer to his antagonists. "I had a little account to settle with you before, Dalbert," said De Catinat, unsheathing his rapier. "I am on the king's errand," snarled the other. "No doubt. On guard, sir!"
Dalbert shrank back from his baleful gaze, and muttering an order to his men, they filed off down the stair with clattering feet and clank of sabres. "Your Highness," said the old Huguenot, coming forward and throwing open one of the doors which led from the landing, "you have indeed been a saviour of Israel and a stumbling-block to the froward this day.
"And so you broke your parole, Captain Dalbert?" "I could not hold treaty with a Huguenot and an enemy of the king," said the dragoon sulkily. "You could hold treaty, it appears, but not keep it. And why did you let him go, sir, when you had him at such a vantage?" "I believed his promise." "You must be of a trusting nature." "I have been used to deal with Indians." "Heh!
Dalbert sprang back, with his thumb still in his mouth, and his sword drooping, scowling darkly at the new-comer. His long sallow face was distorted with anger, and his small black eyes blazed with passion and with the hell-fire light of unsatisfied vengeance.
"And you have left him in the house?" "Yes; he was sat with this Dalbert, smoking with him, and telling him strange tales." "What guard could he be? He is a stranger in a strange land. You did ill to leave Adele thus, uncle." "She is in God's hands, Amory." "I trust so. Oh, I am on fire to be there!"
What protector would they have in their troubles now that he had lost the power that might have shielded them? How long would it be before they were exposed once more to the brutalities of Dalbert and his dragoons? He clenched his teeth at the thought, and threw himself down with a groan upon the litter of straw dimly visible in the faint light which streamed through the single window.
"What is amiss, then?" asked the young soldier, who was somewhat mystified by the scriptural language in use among the French Calvinists of the day. "Twenty men of Moab have been quartered upon me, with one Dalbert, their captain, who has long been a scourge to Israel." "Captain Claude Dalbert, of the Languedoc Dragoons? I have already some small score to settle with him."
Yet when I let him go, they set upon me again, and I know not what the end might have been had this gentleman not stood my friend." "Hem! You did very well. You are young, but you have resource." "I was reared in the woods, sir." "If there are many of your kidney, you may give my friend De Frontenac some work ere he found this empire of which he talks. But how is this, Captain Dalbert?
Clapping the wound to his mouth, he flashed out his sword and was about to drive it through the body of his unarmed opponent, when De Catinat sprang forward and caught him by the wrist. "You villain, Dalbert!" he cried. The sudden appearance of one of the king's own bodyguard had a magic effect upon the brawlers.
Word Of The Day