“Beware, Marie! I will make you pay dearly for your insulting patronage!”
The hours were flying by. This incident had occupied ten minutes more—ten centuries—and the last trace of order had disappeared.
M. Lacheneur could have wept with rage. He called Maurice and Chanlouineau.
“I place you in command,” said he; “do all that you can to hurry these idiots onward. I will ride as fast as I can to the Croix d’Arcy.”
He started, but he was only a short distance in advance of his followers when he saw two men running toward him at full speed. One was clad in the attire of a well-to-do bourgeois; the other wore the old uniform of captain in the Emperor’s guard.
“What has happened?” Lacheneur cried, in alarm.
“All is discovered!”
“Great God!”
“Major Carini has been arrested.”
“By whom? How?”