This blocked the path along which I intended to leave the town. Riding at their head I recognized my old time enemy, my half brother, Pedro Ortez, a man of whose prowess and cruelty terrible stories were told. Right willingly would I have paused to give him fight, but for the babe. The fellow who had raised the cry now threw himself full in my way with the evident purpose of engaging me until the others came up. I made straight at him, but he stood his ground bravely, and encumbered as I was with the child, he succeeded in wounding me twice before I could pierce him through the throat and drop him from his horse. Verily, his courage was worthy a better quarrel. This, in full sight of the oncoming band, fixed their attention, and, raising the shout of "Death to d'Artin," they spurred their horses to a gallop. I had barely disappeared down the deserted Rue Corneille when they debouched into the square, spreading out and circling round as hounds hot upon a scent. Here they were at fault, not knowing whither I had turned among so many narrow and irregular streets. Before they found me again I was well upon the high road to Cartillon. The superior speed of my horse gave me easily the lead. I soon overtook Gaston, drawn aside in the bushes, wounded and bleeding, waiting for me. At first I upbraided him fiercely, but a frightful gash across his head, dabbling his gray hairs in blood, stopped my wrath. On the ride home he told me of the day's disaster. Pedro Ortez and his cut-throats had set upon them in the name of the church. He was soon cut down and left upon the street, recovering consciousness only to find his murdered mistress lying dead beside him. He had then crawled away to warn me, for the whole object of Ortez seemed to be to take my life. Gaston's distress was pitiful; as his mute eyes now and again sought mine, I could not find it in my heart to censure him. Having distanced my poorly mounted pursuers I stopped to water my horse at the spring before riding the few hundred yards to the gates of Cartillon. While yet waiting by the spring I was horrified to see men struggling on top of the great tower. Their fight was brief and decisive. Two of them, one being Maurice my most trusted man at arms, were thrown violently to the courtyard below. Of the others some were killed, some overpowered and carried below again. All of this took only an instant, for it appeared but the end of a desperate encounter which had been raging elsewhere. The time, however, was long enough for me to see that those of the larger party wore the white sash and cross which distinguished my assailants in Rouen. "God in heaven, what murder's work have we at Cartillon?" I cried aloud in my misery. Then one who could answer came running toward me from the castle, gashed, with snapped sword in hand. "Oh, master, master, the Catholics, the Catholics," was all he could speak out before he fell a senseless mass at my horse's feet.