It was at this moment I saw Juste Duvarney making towards me, hatred and deadly purpose in his eyes. I had will enough to meet him, and to kill him too, yet I could not help but think of Alixe. Gabord saw him, also, and, being nearer, made for me as well. For that act I cherish his memory. The thought was worthy of a gentleman of breeding; he had the true thing in his heart. He would save us--two brothers--from fighting, by fighting me himself. He reached me first, and with an "Au diable!" made a stroke at me. It was a matter of sword and sabre now. Clark met Juste Duvarney's rush; and there we were, at as fine a game of cross-purposes as you can think: Clark hungering for Gabord's life (Gabord had once been his jailer, too), and Juste Duvarney for mine; the battle faring on ahead of us. Soon the two were clean cut off from the French army, and must fight to the death or surrender. Juste Duvarney spoke only once, and then it was but the rancorous word "Renegade!" nor did I speak at all; but Clark was blasphemous, and Gabord, bleeding, fought with a sputtering relish. "Fair fight and fowl for spitting," he cried. "Go home to heaven, dickey-bird." Between phrases of this kind we cut and thrust for life, an odd sort of fighting. I fought with a desperate alertness, and presently my sword passed through his body, drew out, and he shivered--fell--where he stood, collapsing suddenly like a bag. I knelt beside him, and lifted up his head. His eyes were glazing fast. "Gabord! Gabord!" I called, grief-stricken, for that work was the worst I ever did in this world. He started, stared, and fumbled at his waistcoat. I quickly put my hand in, and drew out--one of Mathilde's wooden crosses. "To cheat--the devil--yet--aho!" he whispered, kissed the cross, and so was done with life. When I turned from him, Clark stood beside me. Dazed as I was, I did not at first grasp the significance of that fact. I looked towards the town, and saw the French army hustling into the St. Louis Gate; saw the Highlanders charging the bushes at the Cote Ste. Genevieve, where the brave Canadians made their last stand; saw, not fifty feet away, the noblest soldier of our time, even General Wolfe, dead in the arms of Mr. Henderson, a volunteer in the Twenty-Second; and then, almost at my feet, stretched out as I had seen him lie in the Palace courtyard two years before, Juste Duvarney. But now he was beyond all friendship or reconciliation--forever. XXIX "MASTER DEVIL" DOLTAIRE