Then he spoke to the others with great vehemence and yet firmness. A sort of dispute arose, of which Brulette and I could not understand a word; and it seemed far from satisfactory, for Huriel was listened to only now and then, and twice one of the miscreants got near enough to Brulette to lay his devilish paw upon her arm as if to lead her away. Indeed, if it had not been for my driving my nails into his buck's skin to make him let go he would have dragged her from my arms by the help of the rest; for there were eight of them, all armed with stout boar-spears, and they seemed used to quarrels and violence. Huriel, who kept cool and stood firmly between us and the enemy, prevented my delivering the first blow, which, as I saw later, would have ruined us. He merely continued to speak, sometimes in a tone of remonstrance, sometimes with a menacing air, and finally he turned round to me and said in the French language: "Isn't it true, Étienne, that this is your sister, an honest girl, betrothed to me, and now on her way to the Bourbonnais to make acquaintance with my family? These men here, my good friends and comrades in matters of right and justice, are trying to pick a quarrel with me because they don't believe this. They fancy that you and I were talking here with some woman we had just met, and they want to join company. But I tell them, and I swear to God, that before they insult this young woman by so much as a word they will have to kill both you and me, and bear our blood on their souls in sight of God and man." "Well, what then?" answered one of the wretches, speaking French,--it was the one who first came in my way, and I was thirsting to deliver him a blow in the pit of the stomach with my fist that should fell him to earth. "If you get yourself killed, so much the worse for you! there are plenty of ditches hereabouts to bury fools in. Suppose your friends come to find you; we shall be gone, and the trees and the stones have no tongues to tell what they have seen." Happily, he was the only real scoundrel in the party. The others rebuked him, and a tall blond fellow, who seemed to have authority, took him by the arm and shoved him away from us, swearing and abusing him in a gibberish that made the whole forest resound. After that all real danger was over,--the idea of shedding blood having touched the consciences of these rough men. They turned the matter off with a laugh, and joked with Huriel, who answered them in the same tone. Nevertheless, they seemed unwilling to let us go. They wanted to see Brulette's face, which she kept hidden under her hood, wishing, for once in her life, that she was old and ugly.