The man dodged the blow and escaped a second one by leaping into the stream, dragging the young woman with him. Maugis hesitated not a moment, and plunging after him and seizing him by the throat, endeavored to pull him out of the water, but the man shook himself free, and turned upon Maugis. At that moment, such are the strange decrees of fate, the noble Maugis recognized in the face of that man the features of Pinabel. “Infamous scoundrel!” said he to him, “not content to have committed acts of cowardice with men, you must complete your villainy by attacking women. You shall die this time and you need not count on my clemency.” Saying this, Maugis seized him firmly and succeeded in forcing him under the surface of the river, but the fear of death doubled the strength of Pinabel. Maugis could not disembarrass himself from his enemy, who, in his desperation, wound himself around Maugis with his arms and legs. It was in vain that Maugis struck him and tried to force him loose. The drowning wretch clung to him with the energy of despair. Maugis could not free himself from his deathlike grip, and the nearer death approached the firmer became his hold. For a long time the nearly exhausted Maugis struggled to rid himself of the body of the now drowned man, his movements impeded by the clinging corpse, which, with the swiftness of the current, contributed to destroy him. With a supreme effort he raised his voice to call for help, but he was answered only by the frantic cries of the two young women. Little by little his strength diminished, his eyesight failing, and with eyes closed he heard faintly the prayers of the two frightened girls for the safety of the man who had so bravely come to their rescue. Then he sank slowly down to the bottom. He appeared once more at the surface of the water, as if to protest against meeting the same death as a villain who had committed so many crimes during his life, and then he once more disappeared, never again to return to life. * * * * * The death of Maugis would have never become known if the two young girls had not recounted their adventure to some fishermen. They told how Pinabel, in love with one of them, had surprised them bathing, and had seized and bound the one to whom he was indifferent in order that he might more readily accomplish his purpose with the other. They told them, moreover, that Pinabel, having become an outcast, had placed himself at the head of a band of malefactors, who recently had captured a château in the vicinity, killing all the people who inhabited it. The fishermen searched a long time for the body of Maugis, and finally recovered it, with the corpse of Pinabel still attached; then they recognized him as the hermit they had seen in the neighborhood. They laid his remains out tenderly, and carried them to his hermitage, from which he was finally interred in the same grave as Renaud.