e come too soon," he said, without attempting to free his arms,
which were held, as if by a vice, at the elbow and shoulder. "You have
come too soon, gentlemen! There is no money in the carriage. Not so much
as a sou."

"It is not for money that we have come," replied the man who had first
spoken--and the absolute silence of his companion was obviously the
silence of a subordinate. "Though, for a larger sum than monsieur is
likely to offer, one might make a mistake, and allow of escape--who
knows?"

The remark was made with the cynical honesty of dishonesty which had so
lately been introduced into France by him who was now Dictator of that
facile people.

"Oh! I offer nothing," replied Barebone. "For a good reason. I have
nothing to offer. If you are not thieves, what are you?"

The carriage was rattling along the Rue Lafayette, over the
cobble-stones, and the inmates, though their faces were close together,
had to shout in order to be heard.

"Of the police," was the reply. "Of the high police. I fancy that
monsieur's affair is political?"

"Why should you fancy that?"

"Because my comrade and I are not engaged on other cases. The criminal
receives very different treatment. Permit me to assure you of that.
And no consideration whatever. The common police is so unmannerly.
There!--one may well release the arms--since we understand each other."

"I shall not try to escape--if that is what you mean," replied Barebone,
with a laugh.

"Nothing else--nothing else," his affable captor assured him.

And for the remainder of a long drive through the noisy streets the
three men sat upright in the dim and musty cab in silence.

CHAPTER XXV. SANS RANCUNE

A large French fishing-lugger was drifting northward on the ebb tide
with its sails flapping idly against the spars. It had been a fine
morning, and the Captain, a man from Fecamp, where every boy that is
born is born a sailor, had been fortunate in working his way in clear
weather across the banks that lie northward of the Thames.

He had predicted all along in a voice rendered husky by much shouting
in dirty weather that the fog-banks would be drifting in from the sea
before nightfall. And now he had that mournful satisfaction which is the
special privilege of the pessimistic. These fog-banks, the pest of the
east coast, are the materials that form the light fleecy clouds which
drift westward in sunny weather like a gauze veil across the face of the
sky