Sancho was very desirous to be at liberty. He felt that he might be useful to his master, as he never recoiled from the most difficult undertaking; but he was too proud to complain and cry out. He remained silent and stoical under guard of Bois-Doré's servants. While Guillaume, with the two adversaries, was seeking a suitable spot between the road and the boulders, Adamas and Aristandre were engaged in an animated whispered colloquy. Aristandre was desperate, Adamas was in a state of feverish excitement; but the idea that his master might fall a victim to his own generous behavior never entered his head. He was drunk, as it were, in his confidence in the marquis's strength and skill. "Why do you tremble like a child?" he asked the coachman. "Don't you know that monsieur is capable of eating up thirty-six fellows like this coxcomb of a Spaniard? Nothing but treachery could overcome such a valiant man as he is; but the knave Sancho is carefully guarded, and Monsieur Guillaume and I will have an eye to everything. Am I not a second? Monsieur said so. You heard him. We are two honorable seconds, and we will not allow a thrust or a parry that isn't within the rules." "But you know no more than I do about the rules of duels between gentlemen! Look you, I have a mind to climb up yonder without anyone seeing me, and, if the Spaniard has too much luck, roll one of those big stones down on him." "As to that, if I could be sure that you wouldn't crush monsieur with him, I wouldn't advise you not to do it, any more than I would think it was a crime to put two bullets into his head myself, if I wasn't a second. But my master is calling me. Don't you be afraid, all will go well!" Meanwhile the ground was chosen, a clear space of sufficient size, well lighted by the moon. The swords were measured, Guillaume performing the functions of second impartially for both champions, who had sworn to rely upon him; for Adamas's presence could be only a matter of form. The duel began. Thereupon, despite his confidence and his enthusiasm, Adamas felt a cold shudder run through every limb. He became dumb; with his mouth wide open, his eyes starting from his head, he was unconscious of the perspiration and the tears that rolled down his laughable yet touching face. Guillaume too had done his utmost to persuade himself that the results of that strange combat could not be serious. But when the swords met, his confidence vanished, and he blamed himself for not having prevented, at any price, a meeting which, from the outset, threatened to have serious consequences.