the reason
of this attack. To set fire to trusses of straw strikes me as a very
useless proceeding."

"Come with me, Monsieur le Comte: I may be able to tell you the reason."

Together they reached the ruins of the cloisters. The sergeant called
out:

"Lecanu!--Fossier!"

The other gendarmes were already hunting for their comrades whom they
had left standing sentry. They ended by finding them at a few paces
from the little door. The two men were lying full length on the ground,
bound and gagged, with bandages over their eyes.

"Monsieur le Comte," muttered the sergeant, while his men were being
released; "Monsieur le Comte, we have been tricked like children."

"How so?"

"The shots--the attack on the barn--the fire--all so much humbug to get
us down there--a diversion. During that time they were tying up our two
men and the business was done."

"What business?"

"Carrying off the wounded man, of course!"

"You don't mean to say you think--?"

"Think? Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff! The idea came to me ten
minutes ago--but I'm a fool not to have thought of it earlier. We
should have nabbed them all." Quevillon stamped his foot on the ground,
with a sudden attack of rage. "But where, confound it, where did they
go through? Which way did they carry him off? For, dash it all, we beat
the ground all day; and a man can't hide in a tuft of grass, especially
when he's wounded! It's witchcraft, that's what it is!--"

Nor was this the last surprise awaiting Sergeant Quevillon. At dawn,
when they entered the oratory which had been used as a cell for young
Isidore Beautrelet, they realized that young Isidore Beautrelet had
vanished.

On a chair slept the village policeman, bent in two. By his side stood
a water-bottle and two tumblers. At the bottom of one of those tumblers
a few grains of white powder.

On examination, it was proved, first, that young Isidore Beautrelet had
administered a sleeping draught to the village policeman; secondly,
that he could only have escaped by a window situated at a height of
seven or eight feet in the wall; and lastly--a charming detail,
this--that he could only have reached this window by using the back of
his warder as a footstool.

CHAPTER TWO

ISIDORE BEAUTRELET, SIXTH-FORM SCHOOLBOY

From the Grand Journal.

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