"Are you there, all the three of you?" he whispered.
Some one answered from the foot of the wooden staircase near him:
"We are here. Are we to hoist up our bundle?"
"Yes, come along!"
He took the candle and showed them a light.
The three men trudged up the stairs, carrying the sack in which the "fellow" was tied up.
"Put him here," he said, pointing to the table.
With a pocket-knife, he cut the cords round the sack. A white sheet appeared, which he flung back. In the sheet was a corpse, the corpse of Pierre Leduc.
"Poor Pierre Leduc!" said Sernine. "You will never know what you lost by dying so young! I should have helped you to go far, old chap. However, we must do without your services. . . . Now then, Philippe, get up on the table; and you, Octave, on the chair. Lift up his head and fasten the slip-knot."
Two minutes later, Pierre Leduc's body was swinging at the end of the rope.