This was an unexpected revelation; and Daniel was all attention.

“What?” he said.  “The man who fired at me has been arrested?”

Lefloch was unable to restrain himself at this juncture, and replied,—­

“I should say so, lieutenant, and by my hand, before his gun had cooled off.”

The doctor did not wait for the questions which he read in the eyes of his patient.  He said at once,—­

“It is as Lefloch says, my dear lieutenant; and, if you have not been told anything about it, it was because the slightest excitement would become fatal.  Yesterday’s experience has only proved that too clearly.  Yes, the assassin is in jail.”

“And his account is made up,” growled the sailor.

But Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and said,—­

“I do not want him punished, any more than the ball which hit me.  That wretched creature is a mere tool.  But, doctor, you know who are the real guilty ones.”

“And justice shall be done, I swear!” broke in the old surgeon, who looked upon the cause of his patient with as much interest as if it were his own.  “Our lucky star has sent us a lawyer who is no trifler, and who, if I am not very much mistaken, would like very much to leave Saigon with a loud blast of trumpets.”

He remained buried in thought for a while, watching his patient out of the corner of his eye, and then said suddenly,—­

“Now I think of it, why could you not see the lawyer?  He is all anxiety to examine you.  Consider, lieutenant, do you feel strong enough to see him?”

“Let him come,” cried Daniel, “let him come!  Pray, doctor, go for him at once!”

“I shall do my best, my dear Champcey.  I will go at once, and leave you to finish your correspondence.”

He left the room with these words; and Daniel turned to the letters, which were still lying on his bed.  There were seven of them,—­four from the Countess Sarah, and three from Maxime.  But what could they tell him now?  What did he care for the falsehoods and the calumnies they contained?  He ran over them, however.

Faithful to her system, Sarah wrote volumes; and from line to line, in some way or other, her real or feigned love for Daniel broke forth more freely, and no longer was veiled and hidden under timid reserve and long-winded paraphrases.  She gave herself up, whether her prudence had forsaken her, or whether she felt quite sure that her letters could never reach Count Ville-Handry.  It sounded like an intense, irresistible passion, escaping from the control of the owner, and breaking forth terribly, like a long smouldering fire.  Of Henrietta she said but little,—­enough, however, to terrify Daniel, if he had not known the truth.

“That unfortunate, wayward girl,” she wrote, “has just caused her aged father such cruel and unexpected grief, that he was on the brink of the grave.  Weary of the control which her indiscretions rendered indispensable, she has fled, we know not with whom; and all our efforts to find her have so far been unsuccessful.”