"With whatever weapon you please," replied
the stranger, disdainfully. Whereupon Larillière
swallowed the orgeat, with an expression of
countenance as though it were to him the dregs
of a bitter cup indeed, while every one present
preserved a death-like silence.

The masked man, satisfied with the effect
produced by his provocation, now retired: saying to
Larillière as he did so, in a tone of voice loud
enough to be heard by the lookers-on:

"To-day I have humbled you sufficiently;
tomorrow I intend to take your life. My seconds
will wait on you at eight o'clock in the morning.
We will fight on the spot where you killed
the young Chevalier de C."

This was the name of the count's eleventh
victim.

The following morning, Larillière found
himself in the presence of a man no longer wearing
a mask, and who appeared to be some twenty-
five years old. The seconds by whom he was
accompanied, were two common soldiers, belonging
to one of the regiments stationed in the
citadel of Blaye. The bearing of the unknown
was collected and dignified, and singularly resolute.
His seconds had brought weapons to the
ground, but Larillière's seconds took exception
to them, at which a scarcely perceptible smile
passed over the stranger's face.

On taking his position, Larillière turned
towards the second nearest to him, and said, in an
undertone: "For once, I believe, I have found
my equal."

The combat commenced. At the first passes
the count was confirmed in his opinion, that he
had to deal with a skilful adversary. However,
his courage did not fail him, though there
were times when he seemed to lose his accustomed
composure. Lunges and parryings
succeeded each other with rapidity on both sides.
Larillière, desirous of bringing the affair to a
close, had already tried his finishing thrust two
or three times, but only to find his sword
turned aside by his adversary's blade. Harassed
at finding his efforts unavailing, he insolently
remarked to his opponent, "Well, sir, at what
hour do you intend to kill me?"

There was a momentary silence, broken only
by the clash of the two swords. Then the
stranger, who seemed to have profited by that
slight interval to assure himself that the advantage
of the encounter lay decidedly with him,
quietly replied to Larillière's last question,
"Immediately." Saying which, he thrust the
point of his sword between the ribs of his
adversary, who sprang backwards, tottered, and
sank into the arms of his nearest second.
Putting his right hand to his wound, the count
said, with difficulty: "That, sir, is not a sabre
cut; it is a thrust with the point—with the
sabre I feared no one." In a few moments he
fell back dead.

The stranger now advanced politely towards
the seconds of his victim, and inquired if he was
at liberty to depart.

"Will you at least tell us your name?" asked
they, in reply.

Larillière's opponent proved to be one of the
young officers of the garrison at Blaye. When
the fact of the count's death became generally
known in Bordeaux, many mothers of families
actually had masses said, in thankfulness to the
Almighty, for having delivered them from so
dreaded a scourge.

After this detestable count's death, there
sprang up in Bordeaux a tribe of duellists,
obstinately prepared to contest with each other
the succession to that vacant post of infamy,
which the count had for several years filled
without a rival. Among these aspirants were
two, more audacious and resolute than the rest,
who eventually remained masters of the field
of action, and for five years rivalled each other
in effrontery and temerity, with the view of
obtaining the coveted title of "first blade." In this
strange kind of contest, in which each at times
gave proofs of a laudable courage, they displayed
no lack of artifice to impart to their more insolent
provocations all the importance of a great
scandal. One of the pair, an Italian by birth,
but resident in France for a considerable time,
and recently settled at Bordeaux, was the
Marquis de Lignano, better known by the simple
title of the Marquis. He was rather above
thirty-five years of age; of a small, thin, weakly
figure; and with a repulsive, sickly-looking
countenance. He was excessively nervous
and petulant. The sound of his voice grated
most disagreeably on the ear, and it was
impossible to look at the man while he was
speaking, with his head insolently thrown back,
without conceiving a strong prejudice against
him.

The marquis handled his sword like no other
individual skilful of fence; his lunges were
lively, jerky, in fact, singularly rapid, and
commonly mortal. He recognised but a single
rival; only one foeman really worthy of his
steel. This was his intimate friend, M. Lucien
Claveau, who for the moment shared his glory,
but whom he hoped some day to kill, and so
peaceably to enjoy the succession of the deceased
Count de Larillière. The inhabitants of
Bordeaux, victims of the turpitudes of this pair of
spadassins, on their part looked forward with
interest to a contest which they knew to be
inevitable, and the issue of which would be their
certain deliverance from one or the other scourge.
Meanwhile, the Marquis and Lucien Claveau
seemed on the most intimate and agreeable
terms.

Some few days subsequent to a meeting which
resulted in the marquis killing his adversary
(and which made a great noise at the time on
account of the peculiarly unjustifiable act which
led to it), Lucien Claveau, priding himself upon
his brute strength, and jealous of his rival's
reputation, resolved to outdo the marquis in some
more than ordinarily extravagant proceeding.
For this purpose he went one evening to the
opera, accompanied by a friend and accomplice.
Claveau, having slowly scanned the different
individuals seated in the stalls, fixed upon the