I heard a dry chuckle in the darkness, as if he were amused by the abruptness and directness of my question.

’You are a most amusing person, Monsieur—­Monsieur—­let me see, what did you say your name was?’

‘De Laval.’

’Ah, quite so, Monsieur de Laval.  You have the impetuosity and the ingenuousness of youth.  You want to know what is up a chimney, you jump up the chimney.  You want to know the reason of a thing, and you blurt out a question.  I have been in the habit of living among people who keep their thoughts to themselves, and I find you very refreshing.’

’Whatever the motives of your conduct, there is no doubt that you saved my life,’ said I.  ‘I am much obliged to you for your intercession.’  It is the most difficult thing in the world to express gratitude to a person who fills you with abhorrence, and I fear that my halting speech was another instance of that ingenuousness of which he accused me.

‘I can do without your thanks,’ said he coldly.  ’You are perfectly right when you think that if it had suited my purpose I should have let you perish, and I am perfectly right when I think that if it were not that you are under an obligation you would fail to see my hand if I stretched it out to you just as that overgrown puppy Lasalle did.  It is very honourable, he thinks, to serve the Emperor upon the field of battle, and to risk life in his behalf, but when it comes to living amidst danger as I have done, consorting with desperate men, and knowing well that the least slip would mean death, why then one is beneath the notice of a fine clean-handed gentleman.  Why,’ he continued in a burst of bitter passion, ’I have dared more, and endured more, with Toussac and a few of his kidney for comrades, than this Lasalle has done in all the childish cavalry charges that ever he undertook.  As to service, all his Marshals put together have not rendered the Emperor as pressing a service as I have done.  But I daresay it does not strike you in that light, Monsieur—­Monsieur—­’

‘De Laval.’

’Quite so—­it is curious how that name escapes me.  I daresay you take the same view as Colonel Lasalle?’

‘It is not a question upon which I can offer an opinion,’ said I.  ‘I only know that I owe my life to your intercession.’

I do not know what reply he might have made to this evasion, but at that moment we heard a couple of pistol shots and a distant shouting from far away in the darkness.  We stopped for a few minutes, but all was silent once more.

‘They must have caught sight of Toussac,’ said my companion.  ’I am afraid that he is too strong and too cunning to be taken by them.  I do not know what impression he left upon you, but I can tell you that you will go far to meet a more dangerous man.’

I answered that I would go far to avoid meeting one, unless I had the means of defending myself, and my companion’s dry chuckle showed that he appreciated my feelings.