"Is my arm in a sling?" Lucas demanded.
"No, in a handcuff," the captain laughed, at the same moment that his dragoon exclaimed, "His right wrist is bandaged, though."
"That is nothing! It is a mere scratch. I did it myself last night by accident," Lucas shouted, striving with his hampered left hand to pull the folds apart to show it. But he could not, and fell silent, wide-eyed, like one who sees the net of fate drawing in about him. The captain went on reading from his little paper:
"'Fair hair, gray eyes, aquiline nose'—I suppose you will still tell us, monsieur, that you are not the man?"
"I am not he. The Comte de Mar and I are nothing alike. We are both young, tall, yes; but that is all. He is slashed all up the forearm; my wrist is but scratched with a knife-edge. He has yellow hair; mine is brown. His eyes—"
"It is plain to me, monsieur," the officer interrupted, "that the description fits you in every particular." And so it did.
I, who had heard M. Étienne described twenty times, had yesterday mistaken Lucas for him; the same items served for both. It was the more remarkable because they actually looked no more alike than chalk and cheese. Lucas had set down his catalogue without a thought that he was drawing his own picture. If ever hunter was caught in his own gin, Lucas was!
"You lie!" he cried furiously. "You know I am not Mar. You lie, the whole pack of you!"