Auban's ankle; then lifting the body in my arms, I half dragged,
half bore it across the little stretch of intervening sward to the water's
edge, and flung it in.
As I write I have the hideous picture in my mind, and again I can see St.
Auban's ghastly face grinning up at me through the moonlit waters, until at
last it was mercifully swallowed up in their black depths, and naught but a
circling wavelet that spread swiftly across the stream was left to tell of
what had chanced.
I dare not dwell upon the feelings that assailed me as I stooped to rinse
the blood from my hands, nor yet of the feverish haste wherewith I tore my
blood-stained doublet from my back, and hurled it wide into the stream.
For all my callousness I was sick and unmanned by that which had befallen.
No time, however, did I waste in mawkish sentiment, but setting my teeth
hard, I turned away from the river, and back to the trampled ground of our
recent conflict. There, with no other witness save the moon, I clad myself
in the Marquis's doublet of black velvet; I set his mask of silk upon my
face, his golden wig upon my head, and over that his sable hat with its
drooping feather.
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