'The beggar bit half my finger off!' growled Cabasse, whose hand was bleeding. 'I must do for him.'

He was already raising the revolver which he had picked up in Silvine's room when Sambuc disarmed him: 'No, no—no humbug, please! We are not brigands, we are judges. Do you hear, you dirty Prussian? We are going to try you; and you needn't be alarmed, we respect the rights of the defence. Only, you won't be allowed to defend yourself, for you'd simply deafen us if we took your muzzle off. By-and-by, though, I'll provide you with a lawyer and a fine one too!'

He took three chairs, placed them in a row, and in this way formed what he called the tribunal, his own place in the centre, with his lieutenants flanking him on right and left. They all three sat down, and then he, Sambuc, stood up again and began speaking with a derisive drawl, which he gradually set aside till at last his voice swelled with vengeful anger.

'I am here both as presiding judge and as public prosecutor,' said he. 'This is not quite as it should be perhaps, but there are not enough of us to manage otherwise, so I accuse you of having come to spy on us here in France, and of paying for the bread which you ate at our tables with the most filthy treachery. For you were the first cause of the disaster, you, the traitor, who after the fight at Nouart guided the Bavarians, at night time, through the Dieulet Woods as far as Beaumont. Only a man who had long lived in the district could have been so well acquainted with the smallest paths; and our minds are made up on the point; you were seen guiding the artillery along those awful forest pathways which the rain had turned into rivers of mud, and where the difficulties were so great that eight horses had to be harnessed to each gun. On looking at those roads to-day one can hardly credit it; one asks oneself how an army corps ever managed to pass along them. Had it not been for you and for your crime in coming to amuse yourself among us and then betraying us, the surprise of Beaumont wouldn't have taken place, we shouldn't have gone to Sedan, and perhaps we should then have ended by licking you. And I don't speak of the disgusting calling which you are still plying, of your cheek in coming back here in triumph, denouncing and frightening the poor country people. You are the most ignoble blackguard there can be, and I ask that you be sentenced to the penalty of death!'

Silence prevailed. Sambuc had seated himself again; at last he said: 'I appoint Ducat to defend you. He was a process-server once, and would have made his way in the world had he only been able to bridle his passions. You see that I deny you nothing and that we behave fairly.'

Goliath, unable to move a finger, turned his eyes upon his improvised defender. Nothing now appeared alive in him save his eyes, eyes burning with ardent supplication, under his livid brow, moist with the sweat of anguish, despite the cold.

'Gentlemen,' began Ducat, rising from his chair, 'my client is certainly the most disgusting scoundrel there can be, and I would not undertake to defend him were it not that I have one point to urge in his favour, which is that all the people of his country are of precisely the same stamp. Look at him: you can tell by his eyes that he is greatly astonished at what I say. He has no perception of his crime. In France we only touch our spies with tongs, whereas over yonder spying is an honoured profession, a meritorious fashion of serving one's country. I will even venture to say, gentlemen, that possibly they are not wrong. Our noble sentiments do us honour, but they have unfortunately brought us defeat. If I may so express myself, quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat—you will take that into account, gentlemen.'

Thereupon he sat down again whilst Sambuc resumed: 'And you, Cabasse, have you anything to say for or against the prisoner?'

'I have to say,' shouted the Provençal, 'that all this is a lot of unnecessary fuss about settling that beggar's account. I have had no few worries in my time, but I don't like trifling with legal matters, it brings bad luck. To death! to death with him!'

Sambuc solemnly rose to his feet again: 'So that is the sentence which you both pronounce—death?'