"You too! You too, friend! Then we shall both see him die." And bursting into a horrid laugh he clawed at me with his hands. I thrust him back, and it was only in doing so that the light of a sudden recognition came to me. The miserable, frenzied being was none other than De Ganache. God help him! With another look of pity and horror I ran on; but fast as I went he kept by me, and side by side we two led the crowd that howled after us in pitiless rage. We could see nothing of either Simon or De Lorgnac; but we did not want for guides. A hundred fingers pointed out their course at every street corner, and at last a white horse, riderless, and the reins trailing loosely, came galloping out of a by-street; and a roar went up: "He is down! he is down! In the Passage of Pity!" With a yell the madman flashed past me, and hot foot on his heels we crowded into the narrow street; but, save for a big grey horse standing, with hanging head and heaving flanks, near the dark archway at the head of the passage, it was empty. A howl of disappointment rose behind me, and the mob halted and swayed irresolutely; but I felt that the end was come, and ran on. Followed by Le Brusquet I passed the archway, and there in the dark, vaulted passage, with his back to the door of De Mouchy's house, stood Simon of Orrain, at bay at last! De Lorgnac had been too quick for him, and had forced him to fight at the very entrance of his lair. Covered with the dust of his reckless ride, his gay hunting dress torn and soiled, bareheaded, and with the blood streaming from a wound in his face, where De Lorgnac had touched him, Simon stood, despair and hate in his look. Yet he fought fiercely for his life; but he had met his equal with the sword, and, doing his worst, could but hold on the defence and no more. He saw us as we came. He saw too the hundred faces of the mob--the mob he had once himself led to a deed of shame--glaring, shouting, and yelling at him through the open archway, though not one dared to pass the entrance. Escape was hopeless, and his pale face grew paler still, as with an oath he wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, and screamed out to De Lorgnac: "Stand aside, man! I have no quarrel with you! Stand back, or----" But the thrust he made was parried with a wrist as sure as his own, and it was only his own rare skill of fence that saved him from the riposte. After all, he was blood of my blood, and it was not my hand that should slay him. The thought came to me sudden and insistent, as I put my blade beside that of De Lorgnac, and covering him with my point, saw the grey despair in his eyes. "Simon," I called out, "put down your sword. I promise your life!" He spat at me in his fury, the fury of a beast, and I was a lost man if De Lorgnac had not stayed his hand. "God!" he burst out, "if there were only you!"