tier, with
clenched teeth. Bousquier, horrified, remained silent; then,
intimidated by the many threatening glances, he replied in a low tone:
"Toward the river."

Two hours later he was arrested and put behind bolts and bars. That
same evening he was brought before the police magistrate, Monsieur
Jausion, and when the unfortunate man became aware that the matter was
growing grave, that his chatter was to be turned into evidence, that
every word he spoke was being noted down, and that he would have to
answer for them with his freedom, nay, perhaps with his life, he was
seized with terror. He denied the story of the tobacco-dealer and the
heavy bundle, and when the magistrate grew angry, relapsed into
complete silence. On being remanded to his cell he fell into a dull
brooding. "Come, wake up, Bousquier," the jailer exhorted him, "you
mustn't keep the gentlemen waiting; if you are stubborn, you will have
to pass some bad nights."

Bousquier shook his head. The jailer fetched a heavy folio, and as he
himself could not read, he called another prisoner, who was made to
read aloud a passage of the law, according to which a person who was
present by compulsion at the commission of a crime, and voluntarily
confessed it, would get off with a year's imprisonment. The jailer held
the lantern close to the tanned face of the reader and nodded
encouragingly to Bousquier. The latter was mumbling the Lord's Prayer.
Greatly agitated, and groping about for a way out of his plight, he
said finally that everything was as he had first related, only the
tobacco-dealer had paid him not with a gold-piece but a couple of
silver coins. He repeated his confession before the magistrate, who had
been summoned despite the lateness of the hour.

The next morning all Rodez knew that Bousquier had confessed that
Fualdes had been murdered in the Bancal house, and the body carried at
night to the river. Lips that had up to that time been sealed with fear
were suddenly opened. Some one, whose name could not be ascertained,
declared that he had seen some figures stealing past the house of
Constans the merchant; he had also noticed that they halted some steps
further on and drew together for consultation, whereupon, divining the
horrible deed, he fled. The search for this witness, whose voice died
away so quickly amid the other voices, and yet who was the first to
trace, as with an invisible hand, a sketch of the nocturnal funeral
train, proved vain. E