"You are amenable to the law, my man," said the chief commissary dryly. "You'll be shot, unless you choose to earn a free pardon for yourself by making a frank confession of your misdeeds."
"And what's a free pardon to me," retorted the Chouan roughly, "if I am to starve on it?"
"You will be allowed to at once rejoin your regiment."
"Bah!"
The man spat on the ground, by way of expressing his contempt at the prospect.
"I'd as lief be shot at once," he declared emphatically.
M. Lefèvre could have torn his scanty hair with rage. He was furious with the Chouan and his obstinacy, and furious with that tiresome man in the grey coat who lorded it over every official in the district, and assumed an authority which he ought never to have been allowed to wield.
The one-eyed Chouan was taken back to the police-cells, and M. Lefèvre gave himself over to his gloomy meditations. Success and a goodly amount of credit—not to mention the five thousand francs' reward for the recovery of the ring—appeared just within his reach. A couple of thousand francs out of the municipal funds to that wretched informer, and the chiefs of one of the most desperate gangs of Chouans would fall into M. Lefèvre's hands, together with no small measure of glory for the brilliant capture. It was positively maddening!
It was not till late in the afternoon that the worthy commissary had an inspiration—such a grand one that he smacked his high forehead, marvelling it had not come to him before. What were two thousand francs out of his own pocket beside the meed of praise which would fall to his share, if he succeeded in laying one or two of those Chouan leaders by the heels? He need not touch the municipal funds. He had a couple of thousand francs put by and more; and, surely, that sum would be a sound investment for future advancement and the recognition of his services on the part of the Minister himself, in addition to which there would be his share in M. de Kerblay's reward.
So M. Lefèvre sent for the one-eyed Chouan and once more interrogated him, cajoling and threatening alternately, with a view to obtaining gratis the information which the man was only prepared to sell.