It was now too dark for the traveller to perceive the substitution that had just been effected, but as the carriage reached the summit of the hill the occupant leaned out and said to the supposed postilion:
"Don't forget to put on the brake, my lad."
"I am going to do that now," answered the pretended postilion, in a disguised voice.
Then slipping behind the vehicle, he said in a low tone to the Maltese and to Jean Pierre:
"Get up behind and hold on tight. I'm going to put on the brake."
The two men obeyed, while Russell rattled the chain of the brake, as if he were applying it to the wheel, but this was really only a pretence on his part; then vaulting into the saddle, he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and sent the carriage flying down the hill with frightful rapidity.
"Good God! we are lost, and the milk drinker in the bargain," exclaimed Jean Pierre hearing the chain of the brake dragging along on the ground. "Your friend failed to put the brake on, after all."
The Maltese, instead of answering the postilion, struck him such a violent blow on the head with the butt end of a pistol that Jean Pierre let go his hold on the rack and fell to the ground, while the carriage flew down the hill enveloped in a cloud of dust.
CHAPTER VII.
HOME PLEASURES.
Several days have passed since the traveller fell into the trap Captain Russell and his companion had set for him, and we must beg the reader to accompany us to a pretty cottage in the little village of Lionville, about four miles from Havre.