"It's not necessary to tell lies, Pierre Boucher. There was Raoul de Bassempierre whom you compelled to fight you before he was fairly recovered of a sickness. His blood is still on your hands. Time has not dried it away. Look! Look! See the red bubbles standing on your wrists!" Boucher, again as white as death, looked down hastily, and then uttered a fierce oath. The hunter laughed. "It's true, Boucher," he said, "and everyone here knows it's true. Why speak of lies? I don't carry them in my stock, and I've proved that I don't need them. Come, you wish my death, attack again, but remember that I'm neither the untrained boy, Gaston Lafitte, nor Raoul de Bassempierre, wasted from illness." Boucher rushed at him, and Robert thought he could hear the angry breath whistling through his teeth. Then he grew cooler, steadied himself and pushed the offense. His second attack was even more dangerous than the first, and he showed all the power and cunning of the great swordsman that he was. Willet slowly gave ground and the spectators began to applaud. After all, Boucher was a Frenchman and one of themselves, although it was not the best of the French who were gathered there in the garden that night--except de Galisonniere and one or two others. Robert watched the hunter and saw that his breathing was still regular and easy, and that his eye was as calm and confident as ever. Then his own faith, shaken for a moment, returned. Boucher was still unable to break through that guard of living steel, and when they paused a second time for breath each was still untouched. "You are a swordsman, I'll admit that," said Boucher. "Yes, a better than the raw lad, Gaston Lafitte, or Raoul de Bassempierre who was ill, and a better than a third whom I recall." "What do you mean, mummer?" "There was a certain Raymond de Neville who played at dice with another whom I could name. Neville said that the other cheated, but he was a great swordsman while Neville was but an indifferent fencer, and the other slew him. Yet, they say Neville's charges were true. Shall I name that man, Boucher?" Boucher, livid with rage, sprang at him. "Mummer!" he cried. "You know too much. I'll close your mouth forever!" Now it seemed to Boucher that a very demon of the sword stood before him. His own fierce rush was met and he was driven back. The ghosts of the boy, Gaston Lafitte, of the sick man Raoul de Bassempierre, and of the indifferent swordsman, Raymond de Neville who had been cheated at cards, came back, and they helped Willet wield his weapon. His figure broadened and grew. His blade was no longer of steel, it was a strip of lightning that played around the body and face of the dazzled bravo. It was verily true that the hands of four men grasped the hilt, the ghosts of the three whom he had murdered long ago, and Willet who stood there in the flesh before him.