Rire-pour-tout laughed such a gay, ringing laugh as the desert never had heard.

'Vive la France!' he cried.

'And now bring me my toss of brandy.' Then down headlong out of his stirrups he reeled and fell under his horse; and when we lifted him up there were two broken sword-blades buried in him, and the blood was pouring fast as water out of thirty wounds and more.

That was how Rire-pour-tout died, piou-piou; laughing to the last.

Sacre bleu! It was a splendid end; I wish I were sure of the like." And Claude de Chanrellon drank down his third beaker, for overmuch speech made him thirsty.
The men around him emptied their glasses in honor of the dead hero.
"Rire-pour-tout was a croc-mitaine," they said solemnly, with almost a sigh; so tendering by their words the highest funeral oration.
"You have much of such sharp service here, I suppose ?" asked a voice in very pure French.