"I believe that all this is unanswerable," he remarked to Gabriel when he had finished. "What a pity it is that the judges cannot hear me again, or that they have not heard me now!"
"They have heard you," said Gabriel.
"How so?"
"Look!"
The door of the cell opened, and Arnauld, entirely bewildered and somewhat alarmed, saw the president of the tribunal and two of the judges, standing grave and motionless on the threshold.
"What does this mean?" asked Arnauld, turning toward Gabriel.
"It means," replied Monsieur de Montgommery, "that I suspected my poor Martin-Guerre's timidity, and wished that his judges, without his knowledge, should hear the unanswerable speech they have just heard."
"Wonderfully well done!" rejoined Arnauld, breathing freely once more. "I am a thousand times obliged to you, Monseigneur."
Turning to the judges, he said in a tone which he tried to render bashful,—
"May I think, may I hope, that my words have really established the justice of my cause in the enlightened minds which are at this moment arbiters of my destiny?"