wo groups.

The eight men had waited since midday for the appearance of the
treasure. They began to lose patience and spoke of returning to Aubigny
for supper when they heard the rumbling of the waggon descending the
hill. It came down rapidly, Gousset not having troubled to put on the
brake. They could hear him shouting to the horses. Walking on the left
of the waggon he drove them by means of a long rope; his little dog
trotted beside him. Vinchon and Morin were, for the moment, left behind
by the increased speed of the waggon. The men at the first and second
posts allowed it to pass without appearing; it was now between the two
thickets through which the road ran; in a few minutes it attained the
edge of the wood near Langannerie, when suddenly, Gousset saw a man in a
long greatcoat and top-boots in the middle of the road, with his gun
pointed at him; it was Allain.

"Halt, you rascal!" he cried to the carrier.

Two of his companions, attired only in drawers and shirt, with a
coloured handkerchief knotted round the head, came out of the wood,
shouldered arms and took aim. With a tremendous effort, Gousset, seized
with terror, turned the whole team to the left, and with oaths and blows
flung it on to a country road which crossed the main road obliquely a
little way from the end of the wood. But in an instant the three men
were upon him; they threw him down and held a gun to his head while two
others came out of the wood and seized the horses' heads. The struggle
was short; they tore off Gousset's cravat and bound his eyes with it, he
was searched and his knife taken, then cuffed, pushed into the wood and
promised a ball if he moved.

But Vinchon and Morin, who were behind, had seen the waggon disappear in
the wood. Morin, not caring to join in the scuffle, hurried across the
fields, turned the edge of the wood, and ran towards Langannerie to
inform the gendarmes. Vinchon, on the contrary, drew his sabre and
advanced towards the road, but he had only taken a few steps when he
received a triple discharge from the first post. He fell, with a ball in
his shoulder, and rolled in the ditch, his blood flowing. The men then
hastened to the waggon; they cut the cords of the tarpaulin with
Gousset's knife, uncovered the chests and attacked them with hatchets.
Whilst two of the brigands unharnessed the horses, the others flung the
money, handfuls of gold and crowns, pell-mell into their sacks. The
first one, bursting with si