Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight of it, for I knew that I had stumbled on the place I sought. In the common run of things I should have weighed my next step carefully, and gone about it slowly. But here was no place for thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down the side of the hollow, and the moment my feet touched the bottom, sprang to the door of the little hut whence the light issued. A stone turned under my foot in my rush, and I fell on my knees on the threshold; but the fall only brought my face to a level with the startled eyes of the man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had been reading. At the sound I made he dropped his book, and stretched out his hand for a weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered him before he could reach his; he was not in a posture from which he could spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand. The tigerish glare which had flickered for an instant in his eyes, gave place to a languid smile; and he shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, bien?" he said, with marvellous composure. "Taken at last! Well, I was tired of it."
"You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforêt," I answered.
"It seems so," he said.
"Move a hand, and I kill you," I answered. "But you have still a choice."
"Truly?" he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris alive or dead. Give me your parole that you will make no attempt to escape, and you shall go thither at your ease and as a gentleman. Refuse, and I shall disarm and bind you, and you will go as a prisoner."
"What force have you?" he asked curtly. He had not moved. He still lay on his elbow, his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which he had been reading close to his hand. But his quick, black eyes, which looked the keener for the pallor and thinness of his face, roved ceaselessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, took note of everything.
"Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied sternly. "But that is not all. There are thirty dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and they will make you no such offer. Surrender to me before they come and give me your parole, and I will do all for your comfort. Delay, and you will fall into their hands. There can be no escape."
"You will take my word," he said slowly.
"Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforêt," I replied.