It was broad daylight by this time and the morning, still a trifle chilly, gave promise of a very fine day. The tragic scenes just enacted had had, thanks to the radiant beams of the rising sun, an almost cheerful setting. As the forage-wagon, now transformed into a “Black Maria,” was driving off, loaded up with the sinister crew so opportunely captured by Juve, the latter rubbed his hands, a customary mark of inward satisfaction with that officer.
“Good work Fandor!” he said—“and none too soon, neither! I was beginning to despair.”
Fandor wagged his head sententiously.
“We should never despair, Juve; but all the same, like you, I confess this morning has held some surprise for us. I was just eating my heart out down in that cellar; I thought one time neither you nor I would ever see the light of day again!...”
But Juve was lost in a brown study. With head cast down and hands clasped behind his back, he paced a few steps in the direction taken by the army vehicle carrying the gang of apaches.
“We are going to the police-station?” Fandor asked.
“To the station? no! We have something better to do.”
Fandor stood with folded arms, fixing a look of interrogation on his companion’s face.
“You are leaving all those fellows in the lurch?” he inquired.
“I am not leaving them in the lurch, Fandor! We shall catch up with them again before long; now at once, if need be. Only we have more pressing business. Never forget, my boy, that all those fellows are really and truly only supers. What we want now is to come upon the leading actor.”