I began to see again. Huriel was standing erect, waiting, like a fair fighter, to see if his adversary rose, but not approaching him, for fear of some treachery, of which he knew the man capable.
But Malzac did not rise, and Archignat, forbidding the others to move, called him three times. No answer being given he advanced towards him, saying,—
"Malzac, it is I, don't touch me."
Malzac appeared to have no desire to do so,—he lay as still as a stone; and the chief stooping over him, touched him, looked at him, and then called two of the muleteers by name and said to them:—
"The game is up with him; do what there is to do."
They immediately took him by the feet and head and disappeared at full speed in the forest, followed by the other muleteers, who prevented all who did not belong to their fraternity from making any inquiry as to the result of the affair. Maître Archignat was the last to go, after saying a word to the Head-Woodsman, who replied,—
"That's enough; adieu."
Thérence had fastened on her brother, and was wiping the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief, asking him if he was wounded, and trying to detain him and examine him. But he, too, whispered in her ear, and she at once replied,—
"Yes, yes—adieu!"
Huriel then took Archignat's arm, and the pair disappeared in the darkness; for, as they went, they knocked over the torches, and I felt for a moment as if I were in the act of waking out of an ugly dream, full of lights and noises, into the silence and thick darkness of the night.