life."
He had found the flaw in the armor: he knew how to talk Billet over.
"Go on, but be done quickly," he said, turning his back on them.
The man closed the door softly and still more quietly turned the key: which made Billet snap his fingers: sure that he could burst the door off its hinges if he had to do it.
On his part the policeman waved his fellows to the work. All three in a trice went through the papers, books and linen. Suddenly, at the bottom of an open clothespress, they perceived a small oak casket clamped with iron. The corporal pounced on it as a vulture on its prey. By the mere view, by his scent, by the place where it was stored, he had divined what he sought, for he quickly hid the box under his tattered mantle and beckoned to his bravoes that he had accomplished the errand.
At that very moment Billet had come to the end of his patience.
"I tell you that you cannot find what you are looking for unless I tell you," he called out. "There is no need to 'make hay' with my things. I am not a conspirator, confound you! Come, get this into your noddles. Answer, or, by all the blue moons, I will go to Paris and complain to the King, to the Assembly and to the people."
At this time the King was still spoken of before the people.
"Yes, dear Master Billet, we hear you, and we are ready to bow to your excellent reasons. Come, let us know where the book is, and, as we are now convinced that you have only the single copy, we will seize that and get away. There it is in a nutshell."
"Well, the book is in the hands of a lad to whom I entrusted it this morning to carry it to a friend's," said Billet.
"What is the name of this honest lad?" queried the man in black coaxingly.
"Ange Pitou; he is a poor orphan whom I housed from charity, and who does not know the nature of the book."
"I thank you, dear Master Billet," said the corporal, throwing the linen into the hole in the wall and closing the lid. "And where may this nice boy be, prithee?"
"I fancy I saw him as I came in, under the arbor by the Spanish climbing beans. Go and take the book away but do not hurt him."
"Hurt? oh, Master, you do not know us to think we would hurt a fly."
They advanced in the indicated direction, where they had the adventure with Pitou already described. Catherine had heard enough in the words about the doctor, the book, and the search-warrant, to save the innocent holder of the treasonable pamphlet.
Since the double errand of the police was fulfilled, the commander of the expedition was only too glad of the excuse to get far away. So he bounded on his men by his voice and example till they ran him into the woods. Then they came to a halt in the bushes. In the chase they were joined by two more policeman who had hidden on the farm with orders not to run up unless called.
"Faith, it is a good job the lad did not have the box instead of the book," said the organizer of the attack, "we would be obliged to take post-horses to catch up with him. Hang me if he is a man at all so much as a deer."
"But you have the prize, eh, Master Wolfstep?" said one of the subordinates.
"Certainly, comrade, for here it is," answered the police agent, to whom the nickname had been given for his sidelong "lope" or wolfish tread and its lightness.
"Then we are entitled to the promised reward, eh?"
"Ay, and here you are," said the captain of the squad, distributing gold pieces among them with no preference for those who had actively prosecuted the search and the others.
"Long live the Chief!" called out the men.
"There is no harm in your cheering the Chief," said Wolfstep: "but it is not he who cashes up this trip. It is some friend of his, lady or gentleman, who wants to keep in the background."
"I wager that he or she wants that little box bad," suggested one of the hirelings.
"Rigoulet, my friend," said the leader, "I have always certified that you are a chap full of keenness; but while we wait for the gift to win its reward, we had better be on the move. That confounded countryman does not look easily cooled down, and when he perceives the casket is missing, he may set his farm boys on our track; and they are poachers capable of keeling us over with a shot as surely as the best Swiss marksmen in his Majesty's forces."
This advice was that of the majority, for the five men kept on along the forest skirts out of sight till they reached the highroad.
This was no useless precaution for Catherine had no sooner seen the party disappear in pursuit of Pitou than, full of confidence in the last one's agility, who would lead them a pretty chase, she called on the farm-men to open the door.
They knew something unusual was going on but not exactly what.
They ran in to set her free and she liberated her father.
Billet seemed in a dream. Instead of rushing out of the room, he walked forth warily, and acted as if not liking to stay in any one place and yet hated to look on the furniture and cupboards disturbed by the posse.
"They have got the book, anyway?" he questioned.
"I believe they took that, dad, but not Pitou, who cut away? If they are sticking to him, they will all be over at Cayelles or Vauciennes by this time."
"Capital! Poor lad, he owes all this harrying to me."
"Oh, father, do not bother about him but look to ourselves. Be easy about Pitou getting out of his scrape. But what a state of disorder! look at this, mother!"
"They are low blackguards," said Mother Billet: "they have not even respected my linen press."
"What, tumbled over the linen?" said Billet, springing towards the cavity which the corporal had carefully closed but into which, opening it, he plunged both arms deeply. "It is not possible!"
"What are you looking for, father?" asked the girl as her father looked about him bewildered.
"Look, look if you can see it anywhere: the casket! that is what the villains were raking for."
"Dr. Gilbert's casket?" inquired Mrs. Billet, who commonly let others do the talking and work in critical times.
"Yes, that most precious casket," responded the farmer thrusting his hands into his mop of hair.
"You frighten me, father," said Catherine.
"Wretch that I am," cried the man, in rage, "and fool never to suspect that. I never thought about the casket. Oh, what will the doctor say? What will he think? That I am a betrayer, a coward, a worthless fellow!"
"Oh, heavens, what was in it, dad?"
"I don't know; but I answered for it to the doctor on my life and I ought to have been killed defending it."
He made so threatening a gesture against himself that the women recoiled in terror.
"My horse, bring me my horse," roared the madman. "I must let the doctor know – he must be apprised."
"I told Pitou to do that."
"Good! no, what's the use? – a man afoot. I must ride to Paris. Did you not read in his letter
