"Messeigneurs," he said, speaking solemnly, effectively, one hand upon his breast, the other pointing his words, and sometimes, also, pointing straight at the face of Fleur de Mai: "Messeigneurs, upon that night the young Englishman, he who sits there before you white and wan, was set upon in the stable at Basle. He," and he looked at Humphrey for a moment, "wronged me with an unjust suspicion. He deemed that I meant evil to him or his horse, when--God alone He knows--that I did but intend to set that horse free for him, but to cut the halter rope, so as to enable him to ride off at once if he should vanquish Fleur de Mai. At once, since La Truaumont had sworn that, if this happened, he would slay the Englishman the next moment, not in fair fight but ere he could put himself on guard. "Therefore, he struck at me, knocking me senseless to the straw and there I lay for some moments. But, gradually, as the dizziness left me, as sense returned, I saw what was happening. By degrees that bully was being worsted; it seemed as though his last hour was at hand. And then--then--he tried the coward's ruse--he fell to the earth on his left hand--with his foot he struck the young man's feet from under him so that he staggered--a moment later his sword was through the young man's breast. I deemed him dead. "La Truaumont and he thought that I was still insensible, therefore they heeded me not," Boisfleury went on, his eye, glittering like that of a snake, fixed full on Fleur de Mai, upon whose face there had suddenly sprung a drench of sweat--he divining perhaps what was to come next. "They heeded me not. 'He is finished,' La Truaumont said; 'there is no need for me.' 'Not yet,' this other replied, 'not yet. There is more to do.' Whereupon he lifted up his craven blade as though to plunge it through the senseless man's breast, while as he did so he muttered: 'For De Beaurepaire's safety, for yours, for mine, for the sake of all'." As Boisfleury arrived at this portion of his story--he should have been one of the French dramatists of the time!--the court was as silent as though it had been tenanted by the dead alone: as though it were a tomb and not a room full of living human beings. All eyes were fastened on the face of the narrator; the eyes of Judges, prisoners, guards, the one woman present; and all held their breath. For, if the tale were not true, it sounded like truth. It might be truth. While, for the corroboration of the early part at least, there was present in that court the man on whom the foul attack had been made, on whom was done whatever else they were to hear told.