It was not till he had walked three kilometers from Luz that a small two-wheeled cart, covered with a tarpaulin and driven by a countryman wrapped in a large cloak and wearing a Basque cap, overtook him.
He stopped the cart with an air of authority and said imperiously: “Five francs if you get me to Pierrefitte-Nestales in time to catch the train.”
The peasant did not appear to be greatly excited by this generous offer and did not even whip up the wretched animal which ambled along between shafts that were much too large for it.
It was a long journey. They crawled along. It almost looked as if the peasant was holding his beast back, instead of urging it on.
Marescal lost his temper. He seemed, indeed, to have lost all control whatever over himself and [[154]]whined: “We shall never get there—never. What a jade your horse is! Look here: I’ll give you ten francs if we catch that train. What about it?”
The country appeared to him hideous, peopled with phantoms and teaming with detectives on the trail of the detective Marescal. He could not endure the thought of passing the night in this district in which the body of the girl he had sent to her death was lying.
“Twenty francs!” he said.
And all at once, losing his head wholly, he shouted: “Fifty francs! I’ll give you fifty francs! It isn’t further than a mile and a quarter. A mile and a quarter in seven minutes, dammit! It can be done! Get on, curse you, thrash that nanny-goat of a horse! Fifty francs!”
On the instant the peasant became furiously energetic, and, as if he had only been waiting for this magnificent offer, set himself to lash the nanny-goat with such ardor that it set off at a gallop.
“Look out! Mind what you’re doing! You’ll have us in the ditch!” cried Marescal.