"Well, M. le Capitaine, what luck?" he cried, advancing, and drawing rein to turn with us.
I saw his mistake, and, raising my hand to check those behind, muttered in my beard that all had gone well.
"You got the man?"
"Yes," I said, peering at him through the darkness.
"Good!" he answered. "Then now for Bareilles, supper, and a full purse; and afterwards, for me, the quietest corner of France! The King will make a fine outcry, and I do not trust one gov—"
In a flash Parabere had him by the throat, and dragged him in a grip of iron on to the withers of his horse. Still he managed to utter a cry, and the other rascal, taking the alarm, whipped his horse round, and in a second got a start of twenty paces. Colet, a light man and well mounted, was after him in a trice, and we heard them go ding-dong, ding-dong, through the darkness for a mile or more as it seemed to us. Then a sharp scream came faintly down the wind.
"Good!" Parabere said cheerfully. "Let us be jogging." He had tied his prisoner neck and knees over the saddle before him.
"You heard what he said?" I muttered, as we moved on.
"Perfectly," he answered in the same tone.
"And you think?"