"Fine talk! Fine talk!" came the answer. "So you have said many a time and run! Meet me in a ring, foot to foot and fairly, in your shirt!" "I'll meet you!" the lieutenant answered passionately. "I'll meet you, fool of the world. Little you know whom you have bearded. You must be mad; but mad or not, say your prayer, for 'twill be the last time!" There was a momentary pause. Then "Promise me a ring and fair-play!" cried the high, delicate voice, "and a clear way of escape if I kill you!" "Ay, ay! That will I! All that! And much good may it do you!" "Nay, but swear it," the stranger persisted, "by--by our Lady of Rocamadour!" "I swear it! I swear it!" "Then," the stranger replied with a sneer, "it is for you to open. I've no key!" And he leapt lightly from his pile of fagots to the floor. CHAPTER VIII. FATHER ANGEL. As he groped his way towards the door, he came into contact with Roger, who was also making for it. Roger gripped him and tried to hold him. "Is there no other way?" the lad muttered. The situation appalled him. "No other way? You are no match for him!" "That we shall see!" the stranger retorted curtly. "Then I shall help you!" the lad declared. "Would you take on another of them?" the stranger answered eagerly. "But no, you are over young for it! You are over young by your voice." Then, as the key grated in the lock, "Stand at my back if you will," he continued, "and if they--would play me foul, it may serve. But I shall give him brief occasion! You will see a pretty thing, my lad." Crash! The door was forced open, letting a flood of smoky light into the dark place. He who had opened the door, Ampoule himself, strode back, when he had done it, across the wooden bridge, and flinging a hoarse taunt, a "Come if you dare!" over his shoulder, swaggered to the farther end of the hollow space which the men had formed by ranging themselves in three lines; the bridge and moat forming the fourth. One in every three or four held up a blazing firebrand, plucked from the flames; the light of which, falling on the intervening space, rendered it as clear as in the day.