“But I see that we are, parbleu!”
“Of course,” and the Tiger unctuously rubbed his hands in the blaze. “It’s my chance to trap him. He has only three hundred men.”
“And you, monsieur?”
“Our mutual spy has told him that I have less than two hundred men. The brigand knows that I was forced to leave a garrison at Tampico.”
305“But how many have you, really?”
Dupin motioned her to the window. But she saw not a man, not a musket. She saw only the wet fields of cane, and the black mist-shrouded mountains beyond.
“Just the same,” the Frenchman assured her pleasantly, “they are there, full five hundred of my little tribe. Does mademoiselle approve?”
“It looks like the curtain on ‘Fra Diavolo,’” she replied, shuddering.