It had scarcely gone off when I heard these terrible words three steps from my side:—
"Ah! you little rogue, I have caught you!"
I turned round thoroughly scared, and I recognised a head keeper called Creton. His open hand was within half a foot of my coat collar.
I was too well acquainted with the game of prisoner's base to allow myself to be taken like that; I leapt on one side, and was soon ten steps from him.
"You may catch me, but I am not caught yet," I said.
He need not have taken the trouble to run after me, as he had recognised me, for the evidence of a gamekeeper is valid unsupported by other witnesses; but his pride was touched, and he rushed after me in pursuit.
My legs had grown since the day on which Lebègue had given me chase with such humiliating results to myself. Creton saw at the first glance that I was a hard runner, and that he would not get much change out of me, but he did not give up trying to overtake me. I made for the open plain, which was separated from me by a six-foot wide ditch. A six-foot ditch was nothing to me, and I more than cleared it.
Creton, carried away by his chase, tried to do the same, but his legs were four times older than mine, and years had taken away their elasticity. Instead of alighting on the other side, he fell on the near side; and instead of continuing his chase at top speed, as I was doing, he got out of the ditch on all fours, got up with great difficulty, and went hobbling on his way, leaning on the butt of his rifle.
He had twisted his ankle: this did not improve matters for me, and I returned to Montagnon and told him the whole story.
"Bah!" he said, "we have dealt with many another ogre such as he, and we are not dead yet."