The noise of a struggle, of fearful oaths and inarticulate cries, interrupted his orders. Some fifteen yards off, below the place where Daniel had fallen, two sailors were coming out of the thicket, their faces red with anger, dragging out a man with a wretched gun, who hurled out,—
“Will you let me go, you parcel of good-for-nothings! Let me go, or I’ll hurt you!”
He was so furiously struggling in the arms of the two sailors, clinging with an iron grip to roots and branches and rocks, turning and twisting at every step, that the men at last, furious at his resistance, lifted him up bodily, and threw him at the chief surgeon’s feet, exclaiming,—
“Here is the scoundrel who has killed our lieutenant!”
It was a man of medium size, with a dejected air, and lack-lustre eyes, wearing a mustache and chin-beard, and looking impudent. His costume was that of an Annamite of the middle classes,—a blouse buttoned at the side, trousers made in Chinese style, and sandals of red leather. It was, nevertheless, quite evident that the man was a European.
“Where did you find him?” asked the surgeon of the men.
“Down there, commandant, behind that big bush, to the right of Lieut. Champcey, and a little behind him.”
“Why do you accuse him?”
“Why? We have good reasons, I should think. He was hiding. When we saw him, he was lying flat on the ground, trembling with fear; and we said at once, ‘Surely, there is the man who fired that shot.’”
The man had, in the meantime, raised himself, and assumed an air of almost provoking assurance.