"I had no idea that he knew so much!" said Emile, by way of flattering the marquis.
"He's a very intelligent beast," was the modest reply.
When Emile was in the saddle, Corbeau reared and plunged furiously, as if to revenge himself upon a less experienced rider for the wearisome lesson he had received.
"That's a strange dead man!" said Emile to himself, as he rode rapidly along the path that led him back to Jean Jappeloup, thinking of that asthmatic marquis, who was covered with confusion before a child, and subdued a spirited horse. "Can it be that corpse-like face and that dead voice belong to a character of iron?"
He found the carpenter exceedingly impatient and anxious; but when he had given him an account of the conference, he said:
"That is first-rate; I am obliged to you and I place my interests in your hands. But a man must do what he can to help himself, and that is what I propose to do. While you go and write to the authorities, I will go and see them. Your writing will take time, and I cannot sleep until I have embraced my friends at Gargilesse in broad daylight, after vespers, on the steps of our church. I am off to the village——"
"And suppose you are arrested on the way?"
"I shan't be arrested on a road which I know and the gendarmes don't. I will arrive at night and slip into the king's attorney's kitchen. His cook is my niece. I have a good tongue and I will explain my position; I will tell my reasons for what I do, and before sunset to-morrow I will enter my village with my head in the air."
Without awaiting Emile's reply, the carpenter darted off like a flash and disappeared in the bushes.