This did not cause them to relax their hold.
“How does it happen,” demanded one, in a threatening tone, “that Baron d’Escorval falls and you succeed in making the descent in safety a few moments later?”
The old soldier was too shrewd not to understand the whole import of this insulting question.
The sorrow and indignation aroused within him gave him strength to free himself from the hands of his captors.
“Mille tonnerres!” he exclaimed; “so I pass for a traitor, do I! No, it is impossible—listen to me.”
Then rapidly, but with surprising clearness, he related all the details of his escape, his despair, his perilous situation, and the almost insurmountable obstacles which he had overcome. To hear was to believe.
The men—they were, of course, the retired army officers who had been waiting for the baron—offered the honest corporal their hands, sincerely sorry that they had wounded the feelings of a man who was so worthy of their respect and gratitude.
“You will forgive us, Corporal,” they said, sadly. “Misery renders men suspicious and unjust, and we are very unhappy.”
“No offence,” he growled. “If I had trusted poor Monsieur d’Escorval, he would be alive now.”
“The baron still breathes,” said one of the officers.