Lieutenant Réal got up as if moved by a spring. "Bewitched," he repeated, standing very stiff: "In my cradle, eh? . . . No, I don't think it was so early as that."
He walked forward with a tense still face straight at Peyrol as though he had been blind. Startled, the rover stepped out of the way and, turning on his heels, followed him with his eyes. The lieutenant paced on, as if drawn by a magnet, in the direction of the door of the house. Peyrol, his eyes fastened on Réal's back, let him nearly reach it before he called out tentatively: "I say, lieutenant!" To his extreme surprise, Réal swung round as if to a touch.
"Oh, yes," he answered, also in an undertone. "We will have to discuss that matter to-morrow."
Peyrol, who had approached him close, said in a whisper which sounded quite fierce: "Discuss? No! We will have to carry it out to-morrow. I have been waiting half the night just to tell you that."
Lieutenant Réal nodded. The expression on his face was so stony that Peyrol doubted whether he had understood. He added:
"It isn't going to be child's play." The lieutenant was about to open the door when Peyrol said: "A moment," and again the lieutenant turned about silently.
"Michel is sleeping somewhere on the stairs. Will you just stir him up and tell him I am waiting outside? We two will have to finish our night on board the tartane, and start work at break of day to get her ready for sea. Yes, lieutenant, by noon. In twelve hours' time you will be saying good-bye to la belle France."
Lieutenant Réal's eyes staring over his shoulder, seemed glazed and motionless in the moonlight like the eyes of a dead man. But he went in. Peyrol heard presently sounds within of somebody staggering in the passage and Michel projected himself outside headlong, but after a stumble or two pulled up, scratching his head and looking on every side in the moonlight without perceiving Peyrol, who was regarding him from a distance of five feet. At last Peyrol said:
"Come, wake up! Michel! Michel!"
"Voilà, notre maître."