One of these two men held some papers in his right hand, he advanced two or three paces, cast a suspicious glance around him, and then took off his cap with a courteous bow.
"In the King's name! gentleman," he said in a quick sharp voice.
"What do you want?" the Count de Barmont asked, advancing resolutely towards him.
At this movement, which he took for a hostile demonstration, the man in black recoiled with an ill-disguised start of terror, but feeling himself backed up by his acolytes, he at once resumed his coolness, and answered with a smile of evil augury—
"Ah! Ah! The Count Ludovic de Barmont, I believe," he remarked with an ironical bow.
"Yes, sir," the gentleman replied haughtily, "I am the Count de Barmont."
"Captain in the navy," the man in black imperturbably added, "at present, commanding His Majesty's, frigate The Erigone."
"As I told you, sir, I am the person you are in search of," the Count added.
"It is really with you that I have to deal, my lord," he replied, as he drew himself up. "S'death, my good gentleman, you are not easy to catch up; I have been running after you for a week, and was almost despairing about having the honour of a meeting."
All this was said with an obsequious air, a honeyed voice, and with a sweet smile, sufficient to exasperate a saint, and much more the person whom the strange man was addressing, and who was endowed with anything but a placable character.