The contest was beginning again; the adversaries had only stopped to regain their strength.
The company's agent rubbed his hands with a jubilant air, while repeating,—
"Six hundred, seven, eight, nine hundred crowns!"
A species of frenzy had seized on the spectators, and all bid furiously; the girl was still weeping.
Belle Tête was in a state of fury which approached to madness; clutching his fusil frenziedly in his clinched hand, he felt a wild temptation to send a bullet into the most determined of his competitors. Only the presence of M. de Fontenay restrained him.
"A thousand," he shouted in a hoarse voice.
"One thousand two hundred!" the most obstinate competitor immediately yelled.
Belle Tête stamped savagely, threw his fusil on his shoulder, drew his cap on to his head with a blow of his fist, and then with a step as slow and solemn as that of a statue would be, if a statue could walk, he went to place himself by the side of his unendurable rival, and letting the butt of his fusil fall heavily on the ground, scarce an inch from the man's foot, he looked him in the face for a moment with a defiant air, and shouted in a voice choked by emotion,—
"Fifteen hundred!"
The adventurer regarded him in his turn fiercely, fell back a step, and, after renewing the powder in the pan of his fusil, said, in a calm voice—