"No, no!" he cried; "I won't go with either of you. I am a poor old man. It was my brother who shot the soldier, and he is dead. Go away!"
He burst into senile tears and cowered there, surely the most pitiful spectacle that fate ever made of a man. The memories of the past thronged around him like avenging demons.
Suddenly I saw him turn his head and fix his eyes upon Leroux. He craned his neck forward; and then, very slowly, he began to walk toward his persecutor. I craned my neck.
Leroux was holding out—the roulette wheel!
"Come along, Charles, my friend," he cried. "Come, let us try our fortunes! Don't you want to stake some money upon your system against me?"
The old figure leaped forward over the ledge, and in a moment Leroux had grasped him and pulled him into the tunnel.
I whipped my revolver out and sent shot after shot across the chasm. The sound of the discharges echoed and re-echoed along the tunnel wall.
But the projecting ledge of rock effectively screened Leroux—and Duchaine as well, for in my passion I had been firing blindly, and but for that I should undoubtedly have killed Jacqueline's father.
The mocking laughter of Leroux came back to me in faint and far-away reply.
I saw the explanation of the man's presence now. He must have met Duchaine that morning as the old man was flying or wandering aimlessly along the tunnel. They had reached le Vieil Ange together, and Leroux had probably had little difficulty in inducing the witless old man to take him back into the secret hiding-place.