I should have weighed my next step carefully, and gone about it slowly. But here was no place for thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down the side of the hollow, and the moment my feet touched the bottom, sprang to the door of the little hut whence the light issued. A stone turned under my foot in my rush, and I fell on my knees on the threshold; but the fall only brought my face to a level with the startled eyes of the man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had been reading. At the sound I made he dropped his book, and stretched out his hand for a weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered him before he could reach his; he was not in a posture from which he could spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand. The tigerish glare which had flickered for an instant in his eyes, gave place to a languid smile; and he shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, bien?" he said, with marvellous composure. "Taken at last! Well, I was tired of it."
"You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforêt," I answered.
"It seems so," he said.
"Move a hand, and I kill you," I answered. "But you have still a choice."
"Truly?" he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris alive or dead. Give me your parole that you will make no attempt to escape, and you shall go thither at your ease and as a gentleman. Refuse, and I shall disarm and bind you, and you will go as a prisoner."
"What force have you?" he asked curtly. He had not moved. He still lay on his elbow, his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which he had been reading close to his hand. But his quick, black eyes, which looked the keener for the pallor and thinness of his face, roved ceaselessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, took note of everything.
"Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied sternly. "But that is not all. There are thirty dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and they will make you no such offer. Surrender to me before they come and give me your parole, and I will do all for your comfort. Delay, and you will fall into their hands. There can be no escape."
"You will take my word," he said slowly.
"Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforêt," I replied.
"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-and this life Arnidieu! 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 a moment, and I will meet them."
I stepped out into the darkness, in the nick of time. The lieutenant, after posting his men round the hollow, had just 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 knave, 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 Cocheforêt. In a twinkling he thrust a pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly, "You are my prisoner!" At the same instant 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 half a minute, paralyzed with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at the Château. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay; and yet he found me here before him! He swore fearfully, his face dark, his mustachios stiff with rage. "What is this? What is it?" he cried at last. "Where is the man?"
"What man?" I said.
"This Cocheforêt!" he roared, carried away by his passion. "Don't lie to me! He is here, and I will have him!"
"You will not. You are too late!" I said, watching him heedfully. "M. de Cocheforêt is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and he is my prisoner."
"Your prisoner?"
"Yes, my prisoner!" I answered facing the man with all the harshness I could muster. "I have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal's special commission granted to me. And by virtue of the same I shall keep him!"
He glared at me for a moment in utter rage and perplexity. Then on a sudden I saw his face lighten. "It is a d-d ruse!" he shouted, brandishing his pistol like a madman. "It is a cheat and a fraud! And by G-d you have no commission! I see through it! I see through it all! You have come here, and you have hocussed us! You are of their side, and this is your last shift to save him!"
"What folly is this?" I exclaimed.
"No folly at all!" he answered, conviction in his tone. "You have played upon us! You have fooled us! But I see through it now! An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame at the house there, and I thought it a marvel that she did not believe me. I thought it a marvel that she did not see through you, when you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-tied, a rogue convicted! But I understand it now. She knew you! By-, she knew you! She was in the plot, and you were in the plot; and I, who thought I was opening her eyes, was the only one fooled! But it is my turn now. You have played a bold part, and a clever one, and I congratulate you! But," he continued, a sinister light in his little eyes, "it is at an end now, Monsieur! You took us in finely with your tale of Monseigneur, and his commission, and your commission, and the rest. But I am not to be blinded any longer, or bullied! You have arrested him, have you? You have arrested him! Well, by G-d, I shall arrest him, and I shall arrest you too!"
"You are mad!" I said, staggered as much by this new view of the matter as by his perfect conviction of its truth. "Mad, Lieutenant!"
"I was!" he snarled drily. "But I am sane now. I was mad when you imposed upon us; when you persuaded me 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, M. de Barthe, or M. de Berault, or whatever your name really is. I ask your pardon. I thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound heaven ever made, or hell refused! I find that you were 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, 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 shall abide by it."
"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 Cocheforêt, 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.
"Of Paris?"
"Yes,
