He went on: “Here we are blockaded. At the slightest movement, a bullet. And the line of fire is such that we’re obliged to hide ourselves in a mousehole. You must admit that it is jolly well planned.”
“Who by?”
“I thought at first by the old Marquess. But it isn’t him. It can’t be him.”
“Then what has become of him?”
“He’s shut up somewhere. There’s no doubt about it. He must have fallen into some trap which was laid for him by the very people who are blockading us.”
“That’s to say?”
“Two formidable enemies from whom we need not expect any pity. Jodot and William Ancivel.”
He was thus brutally frank on this point, to turn Aurelie’s attention from the real danger which threatened them. For Jodot and William and their rifles counted very little in his eyes compared with the rising invasion of this stealthy water which the two crooks had made their formidable ally.
“And why this ambush?” she asked.
“The treasure,” said Ralph. “That’s the only possible explanation. I reduced Marescal to impotence; but I did not forget that one day or other we should [[276]]have to deal with Jodot and William. They have got ahead of me. Having learned my plans by some means or other, they have attacked your grandfather’s friend, imprisoned him, robbed him of the papers he was going to communicate to you, and have been ready for us since the morning. If they did not shoot us down when we were coming through the passage between the two lakes, it was because shepherds were moving about the plateau. It was evident that we should wait for Talencay here, on the strength of the visiting card, and the few words that one of the two confederates scribbled on it. And it’s here that they’ve set their ambush. Scarcely had we passed through the passage before big flood-gates were closed, and the surface of the lake, swollen by the two waterfalls, began to rise without its being possible for us to notice it for four or five hours. But by then the shepherds would have returned to the village, and the lake become the most lonely and admirable of rifle ranges. The boat being scuttled, the bullets prevent any sortie of the besieged; and it is impossible for them to take flight. That’s how Ralph de Limézy has let himself be caught like a common Marescal.”