"I have nothing to say against Count de Chaumont. He is not of our party; he is of the new. Fools! If we princes had stood by each other as the friends of the Empire stand by their emperor, we could have killed the Terror."
The animal in the cabin by this time was making such doleful cries I said to the potter.
"Let him out. It is dreadful to be shut in by walls."
The potter, stooping half over and rolling stiffly from foot to foot in his walk, filled me with compunction at having been brutal to so pitiful a creature, and I hurried to open the door for him. The animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Ferrier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly be seen without dread.
It was a human being. Its features were a boy's, and the tousled hair had a natural wave. While it crouched for warmth I felt the shock of seeing a creature about my own age grinning back at me, fishy eyed and black mouthed.
"There!" Bellenger said, straightening up in his place like a bear rising from all fours. "That is the boy your De Ferriers saw in London."
I remembered the boy Madame Tank had told about. Whether myself or this less fortunate creature was the boy, my heart went very pitiful toward him. Madame de Ferrier stooped and examined, him; he made a juicy noise of delight with his mouth.
"This is not the boy you had in London, monsieur," she said to Bellenger.
The potter waved his hands and shrugged.
"You believe, madame, that Lazarre is the boy you saw in London?" said Louis Philippe.