word for anything. Papilette was dispatched with one of them, and returned to say that it was too true. I had now to think of the living.
"You will release the thirty-seven dragoons if I free your leader?"
"We will give you ten of them."
"Up with him!" I cried.
"Twenty," shouted the chasseur.
"No more words," said I. "Pull on the rope!"
"All of them," cried the envoy, as the cord tightened round the Marshal's neck.
"With horses and arms?"
They could see that I was not a man to jest with.
"All complete," said the chasseur, sulkily.
"And the Countess of La Ronda as well?" said I.
But here I met with firmer opposition. No threats of mine could induce them to give up the Countess. We tightened the cord. We moved the horse. We did all but leave the Marshal suspended. If once I broke his neck the dragoons were dead men. It was as precious to me as to them.
"Allow me to remark," said the Marshal, blandly, "that you are exposing me to a risk of a quinsy. Do you not think, since there is a difference of opinion upon this point, that it would
