“You must have assistance; I will secure you a guide in whom I have unbounded confidence; old Menoul, the ferryman, who lives near us. He owns the boat which he plies on the Rhone.”
The lovers passed through the little park gate, of which Gaston had the key, and soon reached the boatman’s cabin.
He was asleep in an easy-chair by the fire. When Valentine stood before him with Gaston, the old man jumped up, and kept rubbing his eyes, thinking it must be a dream.
“Pere Menoul,” said Valentine, “M. Gaston is compelled to fly the country; he wants to be rowed out to sea, so that he can secretly embark. Can you take him in your boat as far as the mouth of the Rhone?”
“It is impossible,” said the old man, shaking his head; “I would not dare venture on the river in its present state.”
“But, Pere Menoul, it would be of immense service to me; would you not venture for my sake?”
“For your sake? certainly I would, Mlle. Valentine: I will do anything to gratify you. I am ready to start.”
He looked at Gaston, and, seeing his clothes wet and covered with mud, said to him:
“Allow me to offer you my dead son’s clothes, monsieur; they will serve as a disguise: come this way.”
In a few minutes Pere Menoul returned with Gaston, whom no one would have recognized in his sailor dress.