"Tell me at least that you are not alone."
"I am not alone."
"Then I give it," he said, with a sigh. "And for Heaven's sake get me something to eat and a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty--and this life Arnidieu! it is a fortnight since I slept between sheets."
"You shall sleep to-night in your own house if you please," I answered hurriedly. "But here they come. Be good enough to stay where you are a moment, and I will meet them."
I stepped out into the darkness, in the nick of time. The lieutenant, after posting his men round the hollow, had just slid down with a couple of sergeants to make the arrest. The place round the open door was pitch dark. He had not espied my knave, who had lodged himself in the deepest shadow of the hut; and when he saw me come out across the light, he took me for Cocheforêt. In a twinkling he thrust a pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly, "You are my prisoner!" At the same instant one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn and threw its light into my eyes.
"What folly is this?" I said savagely.
The lieutenant's jaw fell, and he stood for half a minute, paralyzed with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the Château. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; and yet he found me here before him! He swore fearfully, his face dark, his mustachios stiff with rage. "What is this? What is it?" he cried at last. "Where is the man?"
"What man?" I said.
"This Cocheforêt!" he roared, carried away by his passion. "Don't lie to me! He is here, and I will have him!"
"You will not. You are too late!" I said, watching him heedfully. "M. de Cocheforêt is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and he is my prisoner."