For a moment I stood in amazement, gazing at my opponent where he lay prostrate on the sands.  Then, guided by the smoke which issued from the bushes, I darted across to the low stone wall and vaulted on to the top of it.  I dived into the bushes, parting them with head and hand:  I was conscious of a man’s form rushing by me, but I could pay no heed to him, for right in front of me, in the act of re-loading his pistol, I saw the burly inn-keeper Jacques Bontet.  When his eyes fell on me, as I leaped out almost at his very feet, he swore an oath and turned to run.  I raised my hand and fired.  Alas! the Duke of Saint-Maclou had been justified in his confidence; for, to speak honestly, I do not believe my bullet went within a yard of the fugitive.  Hearing the shot and knowing himself unhurt, he halted and faced me.  There was no time for re-loading.  I took my pistol by the muzzle and ran at him.  My right arm was nearly useless; but I took it out of the sling and had it ready, for what it was worth.  I saw that the fellow’s face was pale and that he displayed no pleasure in the game.  But he stood his ground; and I, made wary by the recollection of my maimed state, would not rush on him, but came to a stand about a yard from him, reconnoitering how I might best spring on him.  Thus we rested for a moment till remembering that the duke, if he were not already dead, lay at the mercy of the other scoundrel, I gathered myself together and threw myself at Jacques Bontet.  He also had clubbed his weapon, and he struck wildly at me as I came on.  My head he missed, and the blow fell on my right shoulder, settling once for all the question whether my right arm was to be of any use or not.  Yet its uselessness mattered not, for I countered his blow with a better, and the butt of my pistol fell full and square on his forehead.  For a moment he stood looking at me, with hatred and fear in his eyes:  then, as it seemed to me, quite slowly his knees gave way under him; his face dropped down from mine; he might have been sinking into the ground, till at last, his knees being bent right under him, uttering a low groan, he toppled over and lay on the ground.

Spending on him and his state no more thought that they deserved, I snatched his pistol from him (for mine was broken at the junction of barrel and stock), and, without waiting to load (and indeed with one hand helpless and in the agitation which I was suffering it would have taken me more than a moment), I hastened back to the wall, and, parting the bushes, looked over.  It was a strange sight that I saw.  The duke was no longer prone on his face, as he had fallen, but lay on his back, with his arms stretched out, crosswise; and by his side knelt a small spare man, who searched, hunted, and rummaged with hasty, yet cool and methodical, touch, every inch of his clothing.  Up and down, across and across, into every pocket, along every lining, aye, down to the boots, ran the nimble fingers; and in the still of