As a precaution, he rolled his bed against the door, put the table and chairs on the top of it, and kept watch. The rest of the night passed peaceably and quietly. The moon accomplished her nocturnal round, and when the sun reappeared, Allegrignac, ashamed of his panic, restored everything to its place. At seven o’clock Ali knocked at the door.
“Here is what you want,” said he, placing a small sack on the count’s bed. “Have you the money ready?”
“There it is.”
“I should recommend you to lose no time in setting out, for I think I saw one of your companions this morning.”
Allegrignac did not wait to hear this advice repeated. He went down-stairs, and, finding his horse ready at the door, he tied the sack to the saddle-bow, set spurs to his nag, and rode off at a gallop. Ali smiled to see him go, and then, when he was no longer in sight, turned into the apartment of the Baron of Mont-Rognon.
“I have obeyed your orders, sir. Here is what you required.” And he flung a sack on the table, as he had already done in the case of Allegrignac.
“There is the sum we agreed on,” said the baron, tendering him the twenty-five pieces. “Saddle my horse, I am in a hurry to be off!”
“It is ready saddled,” said the landlord, taking the money; “your honour will find it at the foot of the stairs.”
Mont-Rognon went out for the first time for a month. He attached the small sack to the saddle-bow as Allegrignac had done, and in a few minutes was out of sight. Ali did not on this day enter the two rooms occupied by Porc-en-Truie and Maragougnia. He spent his time in counting his money.
“Fifty gold pieces from the drunken knight, plus forty for his keep, will be ninety. Sixty from the talkative knight, plus thirty-five for his board and lodging, will be ninety-five. That makes one hundred and eighty-five pieces in all, if I know anything of arithmetic. Add to this the purses of the lazy knight and the knight of the raven plumes—the one containing one hundred and fifty and the other a hundred and forty pieces, amounting to two hundred and ninety—which I must add to one hundred and eighty-five, leaving a total four hundred and seventy-five pieces of good new money. This is more than one wants to begin life with honestly, so I can afford myself that little whim—and will do so!” Ali Pépé was unable to realise this laudable purpose. He was hanged eight days after, as you, my young friends, will learn, if you continue to read this history.