"My words were meant to appeal to your own better feelings," sighed the Captain in a tone of despairing reproach.
"You betray the Count of Fieramondi, your friend; why not betray your employers also?"
For a moment there was a look in the Captain's eye which seemed to indicate annoyance, but the next instant he smiled.
"As if there were any parallel!" said he. "Matters of love are absolutely different, my good friend." Then he went on very carelessly, "The candle 's low. Why don't you light your lantern?"
"That rascal Paul threw it away, and I had n't time to get it." No expression, save a mild concern, appeared on Captain Dieppe's face, although he had discovered a fact of peculiar interest to him. "The candle will last as long as we shall want it," pursued Guillaume.
"Very probably," agreed the Captain, with a languid yawn; again he shifted his straw till the bulk of it was under his right shoulder, and he lay on an incline that sloped down to the left. "And you 'll kill me and take my papers, eh?" he inquired, turning and looking up at Guillaume. He could barely see his enemy's face now, for the candle guttered and sputtered, while the moon, high in heaven, threw light on the dip of the hill outside, but did little or nothing to relieve the darkness within the hut.
"No, I shall not murder you. You 'll give them to me, I 'm sure."
"And if I refuse, dear M. Guillaume?"
"I shall invite you to accompany me to the village—or, more strictly, to precede me."
"What should we do together in the village?" cried Dieppe.