In less than ten
minutes from the first attack on M. Beaucaire, the attacking party
had fled in disorder, and the patrician non-combatants, choking with
expletives, consumed with wrath, were prisoners, disarmed by the
Frenchman's lackeys.
Guilford's discomfiture had freed the doors of the coach; so it was that
when M. Beaucaire, struggling to rise, assisted by his servants, threw
out one hand to balance himself, he found it seized between two small,
cold palms, and he looked into two warm, dilating eyes, that were doubly
beautiful because of the fright and rage that found room in them, too.
M. le Duc Chateaurien sprang to his feet without the aid of his lackeys,
and bowed low before Lady Mary.
"I make ten thousan' apology to be' the cause of a such melee in your
presence," he said; and then, turning to Francois, he spoke in French:
"Ah, thou scoundrel! A little, and it had been too late."
Francois knelt in the dust before him. "Pardon!" he said. "Monseigneur
commanded us to follow far in the rear, to remain unobserved. The wind
malignantly blew against monseigneur's voice."
"See what it might have cost, my children," said his master, pointing
to the ropes with which they would have bound him and to the whip lying
beside them. A shudder passed over the lackey's frame; the utter horror
in his face echoed in the eyes of his fellows.
"Oh, monseigneur!" Francois sprang back, and tossed his arms to heaven.
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