"Betrayed!" groaned Joubart, as he threw himself back in his chair.
"What, then, is your object in coming here?" inquired Trouvier. "Why are we surrounded by armed men hiding their faces beneath masks?"
"To compel you not to leave this room for two hours from this time; and, to this end, to tie your hands and feet and fasten you to the chairs which you now occupy," replied Bertram, with the utmost nonchalance, when he saw that the men had by this time managed to place themselves behind nearly every chair around the table.
"Never!" exclaimed Bouchon, who was a large and powerful man—"never will I submit to such disgrace while I can defend myself!"
And, with one bound, he sprang across his chair towards Bertram, but dropped almost on his knees when he felt the iron grasp of the veteran upon his shoulders. And that grasp continued until the burly form was bent like that of a child by a man.
Labotte had risen during the confusion which this scene created, and endeavored to escape by the lower door, while others had sought to leave by the ordinary entrances; but Develour stood a fierce sentinel before the only safe passage for escape, and repulsed the miscreant with a bitterness which would have led him to kill the mercenary wretch, if higher obligations had not interposed.
The other conspirators were also met everywhere by leveled pistols and drawn swords. They finally submitted to their fate, and were bound one by one by Bertram and his attendants. When Père Tranchard pretended to assist in tying Létour, he managed to whisper to him—
"In two hours you will be freed. Take care to remove the deposits from the secret chamber underneath; the secret is betrayed."
As soon as they had secured the prisoners. Bertram and Develour locked the outer doors, and then passed through that over which Develour had stood guard into a smaller chamber without any apparent outlet. Bertram ordered Tranchard to show them the means of egress from that room.
"There are two," replied the père, who had managed to lay hold of a bottle of wine before he left the supper-room, and with which he had fortified his inner man. "One, here to the right, leads into the garden, and the other, to the left, opens on a staircase which brings you into Mademoiselle Develour's boudoir."