An imprudent word from the little shepherd-boy, whom M. Lacheneur had questioned, had decided the fugitive’s fate.
On returning to Saint-Pavin, and hearing that the soldiers were searching for the chief conspirator, the lad chanced to say:
“I met a man just now on the mountain who asked me where he was; and I saw him go down the footpath leading to Antoine’s cottage.”
And in proof of his words, he proudly displayed the piece of silver which Lacheneur had given him.
“One more bold stroke and we have our man!” exclaimed Chupin. “Come, comrades!”
And now the party were not more than two hundred feet from the house in which the proscribed man had found an asylum.
Antoine and his wife looked at each other with anguish in their eyes.
They saw that their visitor was lost.
“We must save him! we must save him!” cried the woman.
“Yes, we must save him!” repeated the husband, gloomily. “They shall kill me before I betray a man in my own house.”