"Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly. "I may halt on this leg for aught I know, and come to starve on crutches like old Claude Boiteux who was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the passage under the Chatelet." "Bah, man, you will get a new lord!" Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new ways!" he answered slowly and thoughtfully. "And I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now, than they were when I was young. It was a word and a blow then. Now I am old, with most it is--'Old hog, your distance! You scent my lady!' Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and year out, and summer or winter heard the lark sing. Now they are curled, and paint themselves, and lie in silk and toy with ladies--who shamed to be seen at Court or board when I was a boy--and love better to hear the mouse squeak than the lark sing." "Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hannibal answered quietly, "'twill keep you from that." "Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The splint he was fashioning had fallen on his knees, and his eyes were fixed on the distance of his youth. "For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I go with you. It is a good death to die biting before the strength be quite gone. Have the dagger too, if you please, and I'll fit it within the splint right neatly. But I shall be there--" "And you'll strike home?" Tavannes cried eagerly. He raised himself on his elbow, a gleam of joy in his gloomy eyes. "Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?" He held out his hand. "And when you are sped, I will try the Spanish stroke--upwards with a turn ere you withdraw, that I learned from Ruiz--on the shaven pate. I see them about me now!" the old man continued, his face flushing, his form dilating. "It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew down three to go with Tavannes! And Bigot, he will see my lord the Marshal by- and-by; and as I do to the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho! ho! He will teach him the _coup de Jarnac_, never fear!" And the old man's moustaches curled up ferociously. Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old dog!" he cried--and he held his hand to the veteran, who brushed it reverently with his lips--"we will go together then! Who touches my brother, touches Tavannes!" "Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of battle lighting his bloodshot eyes. He rose to his feet. "Touches Tavannes! You mind at Jarnac--" "Ah! At Jarnac!" "When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot from yours, my lord?" "Not a foot!" "And at Dreux," the old man continued with a proud, elated gesture, "when we rode down the German pikemen--they were grass before us, leaves on the wind, thistledown--was it not I who covered your bridle hand, and swerved not in the _melee_?" "It was! It was!" "And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the Spaniard--it was his day, you remember, and cost us dear--"