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mastiffs!” cried Charles; “the mastiffs!”

      At this shout the outrider opened the carbine-swivels of the leashes, and the two bloodhounds rushed into the midst of the carnage, overturning everything, scattering everything, making a way with their coats of mail to the animal, which they seized by the ear.

      The boar, knowing that it was caught, clinched its teeth both from rage and pain.

      “Bravo, Duredent! Bravo, Risquetout!” cried Charles. “Courage, dogs! A spear! a spear!”

      “Do you not want my musket?” said the Duc d’Alençon.

      “No,” cried the King, “no; one cannot feel a bullet when he shoots; there is no fun in it; but one can feel a spear. A spear! a spear!”

      They handed the King a hunting spear hardened by fire and armed with a steel point.

      “Take care, brother!” cried Marguerite.

      “Come! come!” cried the Duchesse de Nevers. “Do not miss, sire. Give the beast a good stab!”

      “Be easy, duchess!” said Charles.

      Couching his lance, he darted at the boar which, held by the two bloodhounds, could not escape the blow. But at sight of the shining lance it turned to one side, and the weapon, instead of sinking into its breast, glided over its shoulder and blunted itself against the rock to which the animal had run.

      “A thousand devils!” cried the King. “I have missed him. A spear! a spear!”

      And bending back, as horsemen do when they are going to take a fence, he hurled his useless lance from him.

      An outrider advanced and offered him another.

      But at that moment, as though it foresaw the fate which awaited it, and which it wished to resist, by a violent effort the boar snatched its torn ears from the teeth of the bloodhounds, and with eyes bloody, protruding, hideous, its breath burning like the heat from a furnace, with chattering teeth and lowered head it sprang at the King’s horse. Charles was too good a hunter not to have foreseen this. He turned his horse, which began to rear, but he had miscalculated the pressure, and the horse, too tightly reined in, or perhaps giving way to his fright, fell over backwards. The spectators gave a terrible cry: the horse had fallen, and the King’s leg was under him.

      “Your hand, sire, give me your hand,” said Henry.

      The King let go his horse’s bridle, seized the saddle with his left hand, and tried to draw out his hunting knife with his right; but the knife, pressed into his belt by the weight of his body, would not come from its sheath.

      “The boar! the boar!” cried Charles; “it is on me, D’Alençon! on me!”

      The horse, recovering himself as if he understood his master’s danger, stretched his muscles, and had already succeeded in getting up on its three legs, when, at the cry from his brother, Henry saw the Duc François grow frightfully pale and raise the musket to his shoulder, but, instead of striking the boar, which was but two feet from the King, the ball broke the knee of the horse, which fell down again, his nose touching the ground. At that instant the boar, with its snout, tore Charles’s boot.

      “Oh!” murmured D’Alençon with ashy lips, “I suppose that the Duc d’Anjou is King of France, and that I am King of Poland.”

      The boar was about to attack Charles’s leg, when suddenly the latter felt someone raise his arm; then he saw the flash of a sharp-pointed blade which was driven into the shoulder of the boar and disappeared up to its guard, while a hand gloved in steel turned aside the head already poked under his clothes.

      As the horse had risen, Charles had succeeded in freeing his leg, and now raising himself heavily, he saw that he was dripping with blood, whereupon he became as pale as a corpse.

      “Sire,” said Henry, who still knelt holding the boar pierced to the heart, “sire, it is nothing, I turned aside the teeth, and your Majesty is not hurt.”

      Then he rose, let go the knife, and the boar fell back pouring forth more blood from its mouth than from its wound.

      Charles, surrounded by a breathless crowd, assailed by cries of terror which would have dashed the greatest courage, was for a moment ready to fall on the dying animal. But he recovered himself and, turning toward the King of Navarre, he pressed his hand with a look in which shone the first spark of feeling that had been roused in his heart for twenty-four years.

      “Thank you, Henriot!” said he.

      “My poor brother!” cried D’Alençon, approaching Charles.

      “Ah! it is you, D’Alençon, is it?” said the King. “Well, famous marksman that you are, what became of your ball?”

      “It must have flattened itself against the boar,” said the duke.

      “Well! my God!” exclaimed Henry, with admirably assumed surprise; “you see, François, your bullet has broken the leg of his Majesty’s horse. That is strange!”

      “What!” said the King; “is that true?”

      “It is possible,” said the duke terrified; “my hand shook so!”

      “The fact is that for a clever marksman that was a strange thing to do, François!” said Charles frowning. “A second time, Henriot, I thank you!”

      “Gentlemen,” continued the King, “let us return to Paris; I have had enough of this.”

      Marguerite came up to congratulate Henry.

      “Yes, indeed, Margot,” said Charles, “congratulate him, and sincerely too, for without him the King of France would be Henry III.”

      “Alas, madame,” said the Béarnais, “Monsieur le Duc d’Anjou, who is already my enemy, will be angrier than ever at me. But what can you expect? One does what one can. Ask Monsieur d’Alençon.”

      And bowing, he drew his knife from the wild boar’s body and dug it two or three times into the earth to wipe off the blood.

      Chapter 32.

       Fraternity.

       Table of Contents

      In saving the life of Charles, Henry had done more than save the life of a man — he had prevented three kingdoms from changing sovereigns.

      Had Charles IX. been killed, the Duc d’Anjou would have become King of France, and the Duc d’Alençon in all probability would have been King of Poland. As to Navarre, as Monsieur le Duc d’Anjou was the lover of Madame de Condé, its crown would probably have paid to the husband the complacency of his wife. Now in all this no good would have come to Henry. He would have changed masters, that would have been all. Instead of Charles IX. who tolerated him, he would have seen the Duc d’Anjou on the throne of France, and being of one heart and mind with his mother Catharine, the latter had sworn that he should die, and he would not have failed to keep his oath. All these thoughts entered his mind when the wild boar sprang at Charles IX., and we know that the result of his rapid thinking was that his own life was attached to that of Charles IX.

      Charles IX. had been saved by an act of devotion, the motive of which the King could not fathom. But Marguerite had understood, and she had admired that strange courage of Henry which, like flashes of lightning, shone only in a storm.

      Unfortunately it was not all to have escaped the kingdom of the Duc d’Anjou. Henry had to make himself king. He had to dispute Navarre with the Duc d’Alençon and with the Prince of Condé; above all he had to leave the court where one walked only between two precipices, and go away protected by a son of France.

      As he returned from Bondy Henry pondered deeply on the situation. On arriving at the Louvre his plan was formed. Without removing his riding-boots, just as he was, covered with dust and blood, he betook

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