"Another six hours or more in the saddle!" growled the commissaire. "No, thank you!"
"I thought you were anxious about those escaped prisoners of yours," observed the Man in Grey.
"So I am," retorted M. Gault.
"And that you desired Monsieur le Ministre to hear of the escape through your lips, before rumour hath played havoc with the event," continued the other tartly.
"So I do—so I do!" grunted the commissary. "But those damned Chouans only got away last night from Evreux, where they should never have been brought. They were apprehended at Caen; the outrage, which you were able to avert, had been planned and was discovered at Caen; the knaves should have been tried and hanged at Caen. Instead of which," continued M. Gault wrathfully, "they were marched to Evreux, on their way to Paris. At Evreux we had neither the facilities nor the personnel to guard such a rusé gang adequately—they gave us the slip——"
"And," interrupted the Man in Grey, in his iciest manner, "the men who planned to murder the Emperor are now at large, free to concoct a further outrage, which, this time, may prove successful!"
"Through no fault of mine!" protested the commissary.
"That will be for the Minister to decide," concluded the Man in Grey.
But even this thinly-veiled threat failed to instil new vigour into M. Gault. Alarmed at the possible effects upon his future career of what might be deemed official negligence, he had wished to place his excuses personally before His Majesty's Minister of Police, ere the latter could hear through outside sources that the desperate gang of malefactors who had planned the affair of the infernal machine against the Emperor's life had escaped from Evreux, and that such astute and reckless criminals as Blue-Heart and White-Beak were again at large. In spite of M. Gault's anxiety, however, to be the first to gain the Minister's ear, his whole middle-aged, over-indulged person protested against any prolongation of what had become torturing fatigue.
"You are young, Monsieur Fernand," he added dolefully. "You do not realise—— Malediction! What was that?" he ejaculated, as his horse gave a sudden jump to one side and nearly unseated him. The animal had shied at something not at present visible to its rider. It was still retreating, with ears set back, nostrils quivering, its body trembling with fright, so that M. Gault had the greatest difficulty alike to keep his seat and soothe the poor beast.