Then, swinging round, he came straight at me, as a bull makes a charge.
"Monsieur de Bardelys!" he blazed.
"Bardelys!" gasped Saint-Eustache in the background.
"What now ?" I inquired coldly, turning from my friends.
"All that you said may be true, and I may be doomed, but I swear before God that you shall not go unpunished." "I think, monsieur, that you run a grave risk of perjuring yourself!" I laughed.
"You shall render me satisfaction ere we part!" he cried.
"If you do not deem that paper satisfaction enough, then, monsieur, forgive me, but your greed transcends all possibility of being ever satisfied." "The devil take your paper and your estates! What shall they profit me when I am dead ?" "They may profit your heirs," I suggested.
"How shall that profit me ?" "That is a riddle that I cannot pretend to elucidate." "You laugh, you knave!" he snorted.

Then, with an abrupt change of manner, "You do not lack for friends," said he.

"Beg one of these gentlemen to act for you, and if you are a man of honour let us step out into the yard and settle the matter." I shook my head.
"I am so much a man of honour as to be careful with whom I cross steel.
I prefer to leave you to His Majesty's vengeance; his headsman may be less particular than am I.No, monsieur, on the whole, I do not think that I can fight you." His face grew a shade paler.

It became grey; the jaw was set, and the eyes were more out of symmetry than I had ever seen them.

Their glance approached what is known in Italy as the mal'occhio, and to protect themselves against the baneful influences of which men carry charms.