ver there near Villecourt? Villecourt was burned yesterday, you know;
they say it was the penalty the village had to pay for harboring you.
You'll have to be prudent, don't you see, and not show yourselves about
here for a time. I'll see the bread is sent you somewhere."

Sambuc shrugged his shoulders and laughed contemptuously. What did he
care for the Prussians, the dirty cowards! And all at once he exploded
in a fit of anger, pounding the table with his fist.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ I don't mind the uhlans so much; they're not so
bad, but it's the other one I'd like to get a chance at once--you know
whom I mean, the other fellow, the spy, the man who used to work for
you."

"Goliah?" said Father Fouchard.

Silvine, who had resumed her sewing, dropped it in her lap and listened
with intense interest.

"That's his name, Goliah! Ah, the brigand! he is as familiar with every
inch of the wood of Dieulet as I am with my pocket, and he's like
enough to get us pinched some fine morning. I heard of him to-day at the
Maltese Cross making his boast that he would settle our business for us
before we're a week older. A dirty hound, he is, and he served as guide
to the Prussians the day before the battle of Beaumont; I leave it to
these fellows if he didn't."

"It's as true as there's a candle standing on that table!" attested
Cabasse.

"_Per silentia amica lunoe_," added Ducat, whose quotations were not
always conspicuous for their appositeness.

But Sambuc again brought his heavy fist down upon the table. "He has
been tried and adjudged guilty, the scoundrel! If ever you hear of his
being in the neighborhood just send me word, and his head shall go and
keep company with the heads of the two uhlans in the Meuse; yes, by G-d!
I pledge you my word it shall."

There was silence. Silvine was very white, and gazed at the men with
unwinking, staring eyes.

"Those are things best not be talked too much about," old Fouchard
prudently declared. "Your health, and good-night to you."

They emptied the second bottle, and Prosper, who had returned from the
stable, lent a hand to load upon the wheelbarrow, whence the dead
sheep had been removed, the loaves that Silvine had placed in an old
grain-sack. But he turned his back and made no reply when his brother
and the other two men, wheeling the barrow before them through the snow,
stalked away and were lost to sight in the darkness, repeating:

"Good-night, good-night! _an plaisir_