He looked threateningly around, and his eyes fell on Chupin.

“Is it you?” he demanded.  “Do you dare to assert that you discovered the brigand?”

“Yes, it was I who discovered his hiding-place.”

“You lie, impostor!” vociferated the innkeeper; “you lie!”

The soldiers did not move.  This scene repaid them for the disgust they had experienced during the afternoon.

“But,” continued Balstain, “what else could one expect from a vile knave like Chupin?  Everyone knows that he has been obliged to flee from France a dozen times on account of his crimes.  Where did you take refuge when you crossed the frontier, Chupin?  In my house, in the inn kept by honest Balstain.  You were fed and protected there.  How many times have I saved you from the gendarmes and from the galleys?  More times than I can count.  And to reward me, you steal my property; you steal this man who was mine——­”

“He is insane!” said the terrified Chupin, “he is mad!”

Then the innkeeper changed his tactics.

“At least you will be reasonable,” he exclaimed.  “Let us see, Chupin, what you will do for an old friend?  Divide, will you not?  No, you say no?  What will you give me, comrade?  A third?  Is that too much?  A quarter, then——­”

Chupin felt that all the soldiers were enjoying his terrible humiliation.  They were sneering at him, and only an instant before they had avoided coming in contact with him with evident horror.

Transported with anger, he pushed Balstain violently aside, crying to the soldiers: 

“Come—­are we going to spend the night here?”

An implacable hatred gleamed in the eye of the Piedmontese.

He drew his knife from his pocket, and making the sign of the cross in the air: 

“Saint-Jean-de-Coche,” he exclaimed, in a ringing voice, “and you, Holy Virgin, hear my vow.  May my soul burn in hell if I ever use a knife at my repasts until I have plunged this, which I now hold, into the heart of the scoundrel who has defrauded me!”

Having said this, he disappeared in the woods, and the soldiers took up their line of march.

But Chupin was no longer the same.  All his accustomed impudence had fled.  He walked on with bowed head, a prey to the most sinister presentiments.

He felt assured that an oath like that of Balstain’s, and uttered by such a man, was equivalent to a death-warrant, or at least to a speedy prospect of assassination.

This thought tormented him so much that he would not allow the detachment to spend the night at Saint-Pavin, as had been agreed upon.  He was impatient to leave the neighborhood.

After supper Chupin sent for a cart; the prisoner, securely bound, was placed in it, and the party started for Montaignac.

The great bell was striking two when Lacheneur was brought into the citadel.

At that very moment M. d’Escorval and Corporal Bavois were making their preparations for escape.