“Don’t trouble about that,” said Courtecuisse, “I’ll stand ten minutes away from you to the right on the road towards Blangy, and Vaudoyer will be ten minutes away on your left towards Conches; if anything comes along, the mail, or the gendarmes, or whatever it is, we’ll fire a shot into the ground,—­a muffled sound, you’ll know it.”

“But suppose I miss him?” said Tonsard.

“He’s right,” said Courtecuisse, “I’m the best shot; Vaudoyer, I’ll go with you; Bonnebault may watch in my place; he can give a cry; that’s easier heard and less suspicious.”

All three returned to the tavern and the wedding festivities went on; but about eleven o’clock Vaudoyer, Courtecuisse, Tonsard, and Bonnebault went out, carrying their guns, though none of the women took any notice of them.  They came back in about three-quarters of an hour, and sat drinking till past one o’clock.  Tonsard’s girls and their mother and the old Bonnebault woman had plied the miller, the mechanics, and the two peasants, as well as Fourchon, with so much drink that they were all on the ground and snoring when the four men left the tavern; on their return, the sleepers were shaken and roused, and every one seemed to them, as before, in his place.

While this orgy was going on Michaud’s household was in a scene of mortal anxiety.  Olympe had felt false pains, and her husband, thinking she was about to be delivered, rode off instantly in haste for the doctor.  But the poor woman’s pains ceased as soon as she realized that Michaud was gone; for her mind was so preoccupied by the danger her husband ran at that hour of the night, in a lawless region filled with determined foes, that the anguish of her soul was powerful enough to deaden and momentarily subdue those of the body.  In vain her servant-woman declared her fears were imaginary; she seemed not to comprehend a word that was said to her, and sat by the fire in her bed-chamber listening to every sound.  In her terror, which increased every moment, she had the man wakened, meaning to give him some order which still she did not give.  At last, the poor woman wandered up and down, coming and going in feverish agitation; she looked out of all the windows and opened them in spite of the cold; then she went downstairs and opened the door into the courtyard, looking out and listening.  “Nothing! nothing!” she said.  Then she went up again in despair.  About a quarter past twelve, she cried out:  “Here he is!  I hear the horse!” Again she went down, followed by the man who went to open the iron gate of the courtyard.  “It is strange,” she said, “that he should return by the Conches woods!”

As she spoke she stood still, horrorstruck, motionless, voiceless.  The man shared her terror, for, in the furious gallop of the horse, the clang of the empty stirrups, the neigh of the frightened animal, there was something, they scarcely knew what, of unspeakable warning.  Soon, too soon for the unhappy wife, the horse reached the gate, panting and sweating, but alone; he had broken the bridle, no doubt by entangling it.  Olympe gazed with haggard eyes at the servant as he opened the gate; she saw the horse, and then, without a word, she ran to the chateau like a madwoman; when she reached it she fell to the ground beneath the general’s windows crying out:  “Monsieur, they have murdered him!”