"I surrender!" exclaimed the smuggler. "Do you take me for a coward?"
"Then explain yourself."
"This evening I set out for Phalsbourg: I risk my skin by crossing the enemy's lines, but I like that better than to cross my arms here and perish by famine. I shall either enter the place at the first sortie or endeavour to gain an outpost. The Governor, Meunier, knows me. I have sold him tobacco for the last three years. Like you, he has served in the campaigns of Italy and Egypt. Well, I shall lay the case before him. I shall see Gaspard Lefévre. I will do so much that they will perhaps give us a company. We want nothing but the uniform, do you see, Jean-Claude, and we are saved. All that are left of our brave fellows will join Piorette, and, in any case, we may be relieved. In short, that is my idea; what do you think of it?"
He looked at Hullin, whose fixed and gloomy eye disturbed him.
"Come, is there not a chance?"
"It is an idea," said Jean-Claude at length. "I do not oppose it."
And, in his turn, looking the smuggler straight in the face:
"You swear to me to do your utmost to gain entrance to the place?"
"I swear nothing at all," replied Marc, whose brown cheeks were suffused with a sudden red. "I leave here all that I have: my property, my wife, my comrades, Catherine Lefévre, and yourself—my oldest friend. If I do not return, I shall be a traitor; but, if I do return, Jean-Claude, you shall give me a little explanation of the question you have just put to me: we have a little account to settle together!"
"Marc," said Hullin, "forgive me; I have suffered too much these last few days! I have been wrong; misfortune makes me mistrustful. Give me your hand! Go, save us, save Catherine, save my child! I say this to you now; we have no resource but in you."