If he fought slowly, it was that he fought carefully--that he meant the first wound to be the last. He was resolved that De Pontrien never should return home again to divulge what he had seen, and he had the coolness, the skill, and the power to carry out his resolution. At the end of ten minutes he attacked. Six times within as many seconds he might have inflicted a severe, perhaps a deadly wound on his antagonist; and he, too, perceived it, but it would not have been surely mortal. “Come, come!” cried De Pontrien, at last, growing impatient and angry at the idea of being played with. “Come, sir, you are my master, it seems; make an end of this.” “Do not be in a hurry,” replied St. Renan, with a deadly smile, “it will come soon enough. There! will that suit you?” And with the word he made a treble feint and lounged home. So true was the thrust that the point pierced the very cavity of his heart. So strongly was it sent home that the hilt smote heavily on his breast-bone. He did not speak or groan, but drew one short, broken sigh, and fell dead on the instant. “The fool!” muttered St. Renan. “Wherefore did he meddle where he had no business? But what the devil shall I do with him? He must not be found, or all will out--and that were ruin.” As he spoke, a distant clap of thunder was heard to the eastward, and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall, while a heavy mass of black thunder-clouds began to rise rapidly against the wind. “There will be a fierce storm in ten minutes, which will soon wash out all this evidence,” he said, looking down at the trampled and blood-stained greensward. “One hour hence, and there will not be a sign of this, if I can but dispose of him. Ha!” he added, as a quick thought struck him, “the Devil’s Drinking-Cup! Enough! it is done!” Within a minute’s space he had swathed the corpse tightly in the cloak, which had fallen from the wretched man’s shoulders as the fray began, bound it about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the brink of the fearful well, which was now--for the tide was up--brimful of white boiling surf, and holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence, hurled it into the abyss. It sunk instantly, so well was the stone secured to it; and the fate of the chevalier de Pontrien never was suspected, for that fatal pool never gave up its dead, nor will until the judgment-day. Meantime the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and a mimic torrent, rushing down the dark glen, soon obliterated every trace of that stern, short affray. Calmly Raoul strode homeward, and untouched by any conscience, for those were hard and ruthless times, and he had undergone so much wrong at the hands of his victim’s nearest relatives, and dearest friends, that it was no great marvel if his blood were heated, and his heart pitiless.