Marsac swore and threatened in a breath, and a kitchen wench, from a point of vantage on the steps, called shame upon him and abused him roundly for a cowardly assassin to assail a poor sufferer who could hardly stand upright.
"Po' Cap de Dieu!" swore Castelroux at my elbow.

"Saw you ever such an ado?
What has chanced ?" But I never stayed to answer him.

Unless I acted quickly blood would assuredly be shed.

I was the one man who could explain matters, and it was a mercy for Lesperon that I should have been at hand in the hour of his meeting that fire-eater Marsac.

I forgot the circumstances in which I stood to Castelroux; I forgot everything but the imminent necessity that I should intervene.