“Really,” said Julien innocently.
Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this.
“Let us wait for daybreak,” said the singer at last, “they are mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses, and gain the next station.”
“And how about your luggage?” said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his room with utmost freedom.
He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which were black and very tight.
“It’s a cassock,” he said to himself and he softly seized the little pistol which he had placed under his pillow.
“Don’t be frightened of his waking up, curé,” said the postmaster, “the wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself.”
“I can’t find any trace of papers,” answered the curé. “A lot of linen and essences, pommades, and vanities. It’s a young man of the world on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more likely to be the emissary.”
The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat. He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... “I should only be a fool,” he said to himself, “I should compromise my mission.” “He is not a diplomatist,” said the priest after searching his coat. He went away and did well to do so.
“It will be a bad business for him,” Julien was saying to himself, “if he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I won’t put up with that.”