Derues was placed between two men who each held an arm.  A third went before, holding a torch.  The commissioner, followed by men also carrying torches, and provided with spades and pickaxes, came behind, and in this order they descended to the vault.  It was a dismal and terrifying procession; anyone beholding these dark and sad countenances, this pale and resigned man, passing thus into these damp vaults illuminated by the flickering glare of torches, might well have thought himself the victim of illusion and watching some gloomy execution in a dream.  But all was real and when light penetrated this dismal charnel-house it seemed at once to illuminate its secret depths, so that the light of truth might at length penetrate these dark shadows, and that the voice of the dead would speak from the earth and the walls.

“Wretch!” exclaimed Monsieur de Lamotte, when he saw Derues appear, “is it here that you murdered my wife and my son?”

Derues looked calmly at him, and replied—­

“I beg you, sir, not to add insult to the misfortunes you have already caused.  If you stood in my place and I were in yours, I should feel some pity and respect for so terrible a position.  What do you want me? and why am I brought here?”

He did not know the events of last evening, and could only mentally accuse the mason who had helped to bury the chest.  He felt that he was lost, but his audacity never forsook him.

“You are here, in the first place, to be confronted with this woman,” said the officer, causing the widow Masson to stand opposite to him.

“I do not know her.”

“But I know you, and know you well.  It was you who hired this cellar under the name of Ducoudray.”

Derues shrugged his shoulders and answered bitterly—­

“I can understand a man being condemned to the torture if he is guilty, but that in order to accomplish one’s mission as accuser, and to discover a criminal, false witnesses who can give no evidence should be brought a hundred leagues, that the rabble should be roused up, that divers faces and imaginary names should be bestowed on an innocent man, in order to turn a movement of surprise or an indignant gesture to his disadvantage, all this is iniquitous, and goes beyond the right of judgment bestowed upon men by God.  I do not know this woman, and no matter what she says or does, I shall say no more.”

Neither the skill nor threats of the police officer could shake this resolution.  It was to no purpose that the widow Masson repeated and asseverated that she recognised him as her tenant Ducoudray, and that he had had a large case of wine taken down into the cellar; Derues folded his arms, and remained as motionless as if he had been blind and deaf.

The walls were sounded, the stones composing them carefully examined, the floor pierced in several places, but nothing unusual was discovered.

Would they have to give it up?  Already the officer was making signs to this effect, when the man who had remained at first below with Monsieur de Lamotte, and who, standing in shadow, had carefully watched Derues when he was brought down, came forward, and pointing to the recess under the stairs, said—­