The peasant uttered a wild cry of mocking laughter.
"Ha, ha! I will defeat you yet," he shouted, "I shall never let you take me alive," and taking out a small phial he drank its contents to the last drop.
The chef de police and one of the sailors burst in and seized the man, while Riche tore off his wig and beard. There stood Pierre with a wild look in his eyes, but before they could pinion him, he cried out, "Tell Professor Delapine the drug I swallowed was meant for him." He suddenly became short of breath, and reeled like a drunken man, and with a last shriek he burst from their grasp, and throwing up his hands, fell down on the floor of the cabin foaming at the mouth.
The chef de police and Riche stooped down and raised him up, but it was too late,—he was dead.
M. Patrigent had the body sewn up in a sack, and dropped it into the pilot's boat at the mouth of the river, while he and Riche followed immediately afterwards.
Some hours later they returned to Bordeaux where the body was identified as that of Pierre Gaston Duval.
The day following it was interred in a nameless grave in the cemetery at Bordeaux by permission of the authorities at M. Payot's special request.