Having settled all these matters we parted company, he to arrange his own affairs with the Commissary of Police and the customs officials, and I to await with as much patience as I could the hour when I could start for St. Cergues.

4.

The night—­just as I anticipated—­promised to be very dark.  A thin drizzle, which wetted the unfortunate pedestrian to the marrow, had replaced the torrential rain of the previous day.

Twilight was closing in very fast.  In the late autumn afternoon I drove to St. Cergues, after which I left the chaise in the village and boldly started to walk up the mountain pass.  I had studied the map so carefully that I was quite sure of my way, but though my appointment with the rascals was for eight o’clock, I wished to reach the appointed spot before the last flicker of grey light had disappeared from the sky.

Soon I had left the last house well behind me.  Boldly I plunged into the narrow path.  The loneliness of the place was indescribable.  Every step which I took on the stony track seemed to rouse the echoes of the grim heights which rose precipitously on either side of me, and in my mind I felt aghast at the extraordinary courage of those men who—­like Aristide Fournier and his gang—­chose to affront such obvious and manifold dangers as these frowning mountain regions held for them for the sake of paltry lucre.

I had walked, according to my reckoning, just upon five hundred metres through the gorge, when on ahead I perceived the flicker of lights which appeared to be moving to and fro.  The silence and loneliness no longer seemed to be absolute.  A few metres from where I was men were living and breathing, plotting and planning, unconscious of the net which the unerring hand of a skilful fowler had drawn round them and their misdeeds.

The next moment I was challenged by a peremptory “Halt!” Recognition followed.  M. Ernest Berty, or Aristide Fournier, whichever he was, acknowledged with a few words my punctuality, whilst through the gloom I took rapid stock of his little party.  I saw the vague outline of three men and a couple of mules which appeared to be heavily laden.  They were assembled on a flat piece of ground which appeared like a roofless cavern carved out of the mountain side.  The walls of rock around them afforded them both cover and refuge.  They seemed in no hurry to start.  They had the long night before them, so one of them remarked in English.

However, presently M. Fournier-Berty gave the signal for the start to be made, he himself preparing to take leave of his men.  Just at that moment my ears caught the welcome sound of the tramping of feet, and before any of the rascals there could realise what was happening, their way was barred by Leroux and his gendarmes, who loudly gave the order, “Hands up, in the name of the Emperor!”