broken in, and the assassins penetrate up the stairway. The brave Bussy
confides Diana to St. Luc and Rely, and, hastily throwing up a barricade
of tables and chairs near the door of the apartment, draws his sword.
Then, ye friends of sudden death and valorous exercise, began a surfeit
of joy. Monsereau and his assassins numbered sixteen. In less than three
moderate paragraphs Bessy's sword, playing like avenging lightning,
had struck fatality to seven. Even then, with every wrist going, he
reflected, with sublime calculation: "I can kill five more, because I
can fight with all my vigor ten minutes longer!" After that? Bessy could
see no further--there spoke fate!--you feel he is to die. Once more the
leaping steel point, the shrill death cry, the miraculous parry. The
villain, Monsereau, draws his pistol. Bessy, who is fighting half
a dozen swordsmen, can even see the cowardly purpose; he watches;
he--dodges--the--bullets!--by watching the aim--

"Ye sons of France, behold the glory!"

He thrusts, parries and swings the sword as a falchion. Suddenly a
pistol ball snaps the blade off six inches from the hilt. Bessy picks up
the blade and in an instant splices--it--to--the--hilt--with--his--
handkerchief! Oh, good sword of the good swordsman! it drinks the blood
of three more before it--bends--and--loosens--under--the--strain! Bessy
is shot in the thigh; Monsereau is upon him; the good Rely, lying almost
lifeless from a bullet wound received at the outset, thrusts a rapier to
Bessy's grasp with a last effort. Bessy springs upon Monsereau with the
great bound of a panther and pins--the--son--of--a--gun--to--the--floor
--with--the--rapier--and--watches--him--die!

You can feel faint for joy at that passage for a good dozen readings, if
you are appreciative. Poor Bessy, faint from wounds and blood-letting,