the evening, which seemed not broken but rather emphasized by the rumble of the tide that had begun to come in over the sands from the Mount, his passionate curses struck my ears.  I recollect that I smiled—­nay, I believe that I laughed—­for the man was my old acquaintance Pierre—­and Pierre was still on the track of the Cardinal’s Necklace; and he had not doubted, any more than I had doubted, that the duke carried it upon his person.  Yet Pierre found it not, for he was growing angry now; he seemed to worry the still body, pushing it and tossing the arms of it to and fro as a puppy tosses a slipper or a cushion.  And all the while the unconscious face of the Duke of Saint-Maclou was turned up to heaven, and a stiff smile seemed to mock the baffled plunderer.  And I also wondered where the necklace was.

Then I let myself down on to the noiseless sands and stole across to the spot where the pair were.  Pierre’s hands were searching desperately and wildly now; he no longer expected to find, but he could not yet believe that the search was in very truth in vain.  Absorbed in his task, he heard me not; and coming up I set my foot on the pistol that lay by him, and caught him, as the duke had caught Lafleur his comrade, by the nape of the neck, and said to him, in a bantering tone: 

“Well, is it not there, my friend?”

He wriggled; but the strength of the little man in a struggle at close quarters was as nothing, and I held him easily with my one sound hand.  And I mocked him, exhorting him to look again, telling him that everything was not to be seen from a stable, and bidding him call Lafleur from hell to help him.  And under my grip he grew quiet and ceased to search; and I heard nothing but his quick breathing.  And I laughed at him as I plucked him off the duke and flung him on his back on the sands, and stood looking down on him.  But he asked no mercy of me; his small eyes answered defiance back to me, and he glanced still wistfully at the quiet man beside us.

Yet he was to escape me—­with small pain to me, I confess.  For at the moment a cry rang loud in my ear:  I knew the voice; and though I kept my foot on Pierre’s pistol, yet I turned my head.  And on the instant the fellow sprang to his feet, and, with an agility that I could not have matched, started running across the sands toward the Mount.  Before I had realized what he was about, he had thirty yards’ start of me.  I heard the water rushing in now; he must wade deep, nay, he must swim to win the Mount.  But from me he was safe, for I was no such runner as he.  Yet, had he and I been alone, I would have pursued him.  But the cry rang out again, and, giving no more thought to him, I turned whither Marie Delhasse, come in pursuance of my directions, stood with a hand pointed in questioning at the duke, and the pistol that I had given her fallen from her fingers on the sand.  And she swayed to and fro, till I set my arm round her and steadied her.