"Better. Ah! all that has passed seems to me like a horrid dream!"
"Recover yourself."
"And my savior, where is he?"
"In the governor's room. He is telling how the affray occurred. It appears that without him——"
"I should have been murdered, sir. Oh! tell me his name—who is he?"
"His name I do not know; he is nicknamed the Slasher; he was once in the galleys."
"And the crime which brought him here, perhaps, is not serious?"
"Very serious—burglary," said the keeper. "He will probably have the same dose as Pique-Vinaigre; fifteen or twenty years of hard labor, and the pillory, as he is an old offender."
Germain shuddered; he would have preferred to be bound by the ties of gratitude to one less criminal.
"Oh! it is frightful," he said; "and yet this man, without knowing me, took my part. So much courage, so much generosity."