The new-comer was humbly clad, very much in the fashion of one of those gypsies who had pitched their camp so close to the wayside tavern; but if the man's clothes were something of the gypsy habit, he carried a sword under his ragged mantle, and it was plain from the man's face that he was not a gypsy. His handsome, daring, humorous face, bronzed by many suns and lined a little by many experiences--a face that in its working mobility and calm inscrutability might possibly have been the countenance of a strolling player--was the face of a man still in the prime of life, and carrying his years as lightly as if he were still little more than a lad. He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was saying, with a shiver: "I'm always afraid to hear Lagardere's voice cry out Nevers's motto." Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three words: "I am here!" Cocardasse and Passepoil fell apart, each with the same cry in the same amazed voice. "Lagardere!" said Cocardasse, and his ruddy face paled. "Lagardere!" said Passepoil, and his pale face flushed. As for Lagardere, he laughed heartily at their confusion. "You are like scared children whose nurse hears bogey in the chimney." Cocardasse strove to seem amused. "Children!" he said, with a forced laugh, and it was with a forced laugh that Passepoil repeated the word "Bogey." For a moment the good-humor faded from the face of Lagardere, and he spoke grimly enough: "There were nine assassins in the moat at Caylus. How many are left now?" "Only three," Cocardasse answered. Passepoil was more precise. "Cocardasse and myself and Æsop." Lagardere looked at them mockingly. "Doesn't it strike you that Æsop will soon be alone?" Cocardasse shuddered. "It's no laughing matter." Lagardere still continued to smile. "Vengeance sometimes wears a sprightly face and smiles while she strikes." Passepoil was now a sickly green. "A very painful humor," he stammered. There was an awkward pause, and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion's phrase with Norman emphasis. Lagardere looked from one to the other of the pair, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that reassured them. "Are you scared, old knaves? No explanations; let me speak. That night in Caylus, seventeen years ago, when the darkness quivered with swords, I did not meet your blades." Cocardasse explained. "When you backed Nevers we took no part in the scuffle." "Nor did we join in hunting you later," Passepoil added, hurriedly. Lagardere's face wore a look of satisfaction. "In all the tumult of that tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart--thought they might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you."