"Nevertheless you would have given the sum I mention," rejoined the chevalier; "but I will tell you, my lord, how it happened. Maroles and Malivaut met as appointed, and we stood back at a hundred yards on one side, while the enemy remained under the old oak where Malivaut had armed himself. As soon as the two were mounted, and the trumpet sounded, they spurred on, and both charged their lances well: the shock was smart, and Maroles was beat flat back upon his horse's crupper. I thought he was unhorsed; but somehow it had happened that Malivaut's visor had been ill-rivetted, Maroles' lance struck it just at the second bar, drove it in, and entering between the eye and the nose, broke sharp off; leaving the iron in the wound. For a moment we did not see that he was hurt, for he sat his horse stiffly; but the next instant, as he turned to get back to the oak, his strength gave way, and he fell. Maroles instantly sprang to the ground and made him prisoner, and both parties crying truce, ran up. A glance at his face, however, showed us that death would soon take him out of our hands, and, in fact, he spoke but two sentences after. The first was, 'Give me a confessor!' The next, 'I care not to live longer, since my king has been murdered!'" "What! what!" exclaimed Mayenne, starting and gazing steadfastly on Aumale. "Ay, my lord, even so!" replied the chevalier. "_Murdered_ was the word; and we heard from the others who stood round, that Henry of Valois died last night of a wound given him by a Jacobin the day before." Mayenne clasped his hands; and, looking up, exclaimed, "Guise! my brother! at length thou art avenged!" And taking off the black scarf which he had worn ever since the death of his brother, the Duke of Guise, he cast it from him, adding, "So Henry of Valois is dead, the base, effeminate, soulless tyrant! But you have not told me how it happened, D'Aumale. Let me hear the particulars! Who ended the days of the last of those weak brothers? Was it one of his own creatures, unable to support any longer the daily sight of his crimes? or was it some zealot of our party, who ventured the doubtful act for a great object?" The satisfaction which he derived from the event was so unconcealed, and his surprise at hearing the intelligence so unaffected and natural, that although those were days of suspicion, no one ventured to suspect, for a moment, that Mayenne had any previous knowledge of the intrigues which ended in the death of Henry III.