At last he perceived the roofs of a tiny hamlet. He decided to enter it and ask for food. He was on the outskirts of the village, when he heard the rolling of a drum. Instinctively he hid behind a wall. But it was only a town-crier beating his drum to call the people together.
And soon a voice rose so clear and penetrating that each word it uttered fell distinctly on Lacheneur’s ears.
It said:
“This is to inform you that the authorities of Montaignac promise to give a reward of twenty thousand francs—two thousand pistoles, you understand—to him who will deliver up the man known as Lacheneur, dead or alive. Dead or alive, you understand. If he is dead, the compensation will be the same; twenty thousand francs! It will be paid in gold.”
With a bound, Lacheneur had risen, wild with despair and horror. Though he had believed himself utterly exhausted, he found superhuman strength to flee.
A price had been set upon his head. This frightful thought awakened in his breast the frenzy that renders a hunted wild beast so dangerous.
In all the villages around him he fancied he could hear the rolling of drums, and the voice of the criers proclaiming this infamous edict.
Go where he would now, he was a tempting bait offered to treason and cupidity. In what human creature could he confide? Under what roof could he ask shelter?
And even if he were dead, he would still be worth a fortune.
Though he died from lack of nourishment and exhaustion under a bush by the wayside, his emaciated body would still be worth twenty thousand francs.