Langernault, since the government has taken possession of the estate
and made it impossible for anybody to walk in?"

He paused to reflect.

"Anybody? I don't know about that, considering that I saw footprints in
the garden, and that a woman has been there this very day!"

The thought of the unknown visitor engrossed him once more, and he got
down from the table. In spite of the noise which he had heard, it was
hardly to be supposed that she had entered the barn. And, after a few
minutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left,
a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground not
far from where he stood.

They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objects
and implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that the
visitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-place
and made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?

Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send
the light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but an
arsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed what
had happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, he
walked quickly to the ladder and went up.

Suddenly, at the very moment when he reached the level of the floor,
there was a fresh noise, a fresh clatter of things falling: and a form
rose from the heap of rubbish with a terrible gesture.

It was swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe
cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a
second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded
him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder.
The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to the
floor below.

But he had seen.

He had seen the dreadful face of Gaston Sauverand, and, behind the man of
the ebony walking-stick, wan and livid in the rays of the electric light,
the distorted features of Florence Levasseur!

CHAPTER NINE

LUPIN'S ANGER

He remained for one moment motionless and speechless. Above was a perfect
clatter of things being pushed about, as though the besieged were
building themselves a barricade. But to the right of the electric rays,
diffused daylight entered through an opening that was suddenly exposed;
and he saw, in front of this opening, first one form and then another
stooping in order to escape o