The Burgomaster, a Belgian but a Bonapartist—­this breed is to be found—­had him at once reconducted to the frontier by the gendarmes, who were ordered to hand him over to the French authorities.

Cournet gave himself up for lost.

The Belgian gendarmes took him to Armentieres.  If they had asked for the Mayor it would have been all at an end with Cournet, but they asked for the Inspector of Customs.

A glimmer of hope dawned upon Cournet.

He accosted the Inspector of Customs with his head erect, and shook hands with him.

The Belgian gendarmes had not yet released him.

“Now, sir,” said Cournet to the Custom House officer, “you are an Inspector of Customs, I am an Inspector of Railways.  Inspectors do not eat inspectors.  The deuce take it!  Some worthy Belgians have taken fright and sent me to you between four gendarmes.  Why, I know not.  I am sent by the Northern Company to relay the ballast of a bridge somewhere about here which is not firm.  I come to ask you to allow me to continue my road.  Here is my pass.”

He presented the pass to the Custom House officer, the Custom House officer read it, found it according to due form, and said to Cournet,—­

“Mr. Inspector, you are free.”

Cournet, delivered from the Belgian gendarmes by French authority, hastened to the railway station.  He had friends there.

“Quick,” he said, “it is dark, but it does not matter, it is even all the better.  Find me some one who has been a smuggler, and who will help me to pass the frontier.”

They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired, ruddy, hardy, a Walloon[35] and who spoke French.

“What is your name?” said Cournet.

“Henry.”

“You look like a girl.”

“Nevertheless I am a man.”

“Is it you who undertake to guide me?”

“Yes.”

“You have been a smuggler?”

“I am one still.”

“Do you know the roads?”

“No.  I have nothing to do with the roads.”

“What do you know then?”

“I know the passes.”

“There are two Custom House lines.”

“I know that well.”

“Will you pass me across them?”

“Without doubt.”

“Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?”

“I’m afraid of the dogs.”

“In that case,” said Cournet, “we will take sticks.”

They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks.  Cournet gave fifty francs to Henry, and promised him fifty more when they should have crossed the second Custom House line.

“That is to say, at four o’clock in the morning,” said Henry.

It was midnight.

They set out on their way.

What Henry called the “passes” another would have called the “hindrances.”  They were a succession of pitfalls and quagmires.  It had been raining, and all the holes were pools of water.