‘Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforet.’
‘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. MON DIEU! 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 for a moment, and I will meet them.’
I stepped out into the darkness, just as the Lieutenant, after posting his men round the hollow, 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 man, 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 Cocheforet. In a twinkling he thrust a pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly,—‘You are my prisoner!’ while 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 a moment paralysed with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the Chateau. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; yet he found me here before him. He swore fearfully, his face black, his moustachios stiff with rage.
‘What is this? What is it?’ he cried. ‘Where is the man?’
‘What man?’ I said.