Page 222 (1/2)

"Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of battle lighting his

bloodshot eyes He rose to his feet "Touches Tavannes! You ed their horse, was my boot a foot from yours, my lord?"

"Not a foot!"

"And at Dreux," the old esture, "when

we rode down the Gerrass before us, leaves on the

wind, thistledoas it not I who covered your bridle hand, and swerved

not in the melee?"

"It was! It was!"

"And at St Quentin, e fled before the Spaniard--it was his day,

you re then," Tavannes cried in turn, his eyes glistening "St

Quentin! It was the tenth of August And you were neith ether, my lord--of the last, of the last, as God sees

aood sword! I remember it as if it had been yesterday!"

"And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the old Spanish wars, that

was most like a joust of all the pitched fields I ever saw--at Cerisoles,

where I caught your horse? You mind me? It was in the shock e

broke Guasto's line--"