‘You are mad!’ I said staggered as much by this new view of the matter as by his perfect certainty. ‘Mad, Lieutenant.’
‘I was,’ he snarled. ‘But I am sane now. I was mad when you imposed upon us, when you persuaded me to think that you were fooling the women to get the secret out of them, while all the time you were sheltering them, protecting them, aiding them, and hiding him—then I was mad. But not now. However, I ask your pardon. I thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound Heaven ever made. I find you are cleverer than I thought, and an honest traitor. Your pardon.’
One of the men, who stood about the rim of the bowl above us, laughed. I looked at the Lieutenant and could willingly have killed him.
‘MON DIEU!’ I said—and I was so furious in my turn that I could scarcely speak. ‘Do you say that I am an impostor—that I do not hold the Cardinal’s commission?’
‘I do say that,’ he answered coolly.
‘And that I belong to the rebel party?’
‘I do,’ he replied in the same tone. ‘In fact,’ with a grin, ‘I say that you are an honest man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back my opinion by arresting you.’
A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the hollow. The sergeant who held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out of the darkness ‘A BON CHAT BON RAT!’ This brought a fresh burst of laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the stubbornness, the crassness, the insolence of the man. ‘You fool!’ I cried at last, ‘you fool!’ And then M. de Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut and taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me.
‘Pardon me one moment,’ he said, airily, looking at the Lieutenant with raised eyebrows and pointing to me with his thumb, ‘but I am puzzled between you. This gentleman’s name? Is it de Berault or de Barthe?’
‘I am M. de Berault,’ I said, brusquely, answering for myself.