The little man laughed.
“I should not wait for you to offer them.”
The brutal sneer accompanying these words made the stranger again shudder. He went on, however:—
“In the name of the miners, I offer you the command of the insurrection.”
The small man was silent for an instant. All at once his dark countenance assumed an expression of infernal malice.
“Does the offer really come from them?” said he.
This question seemed to embarrass the new-comer; but as he was sure that he was unknown to his terrible interlocutor, he readily recovered himself.
“Why have the miners rebelled?”
“To throw off the burden of the royal protectorate.”
“Only for that?” replied the other in the same mocking tone.