continued Pontcalec, "even though you should laugh,
like my Uncle Crysogon, you would never change my opinion, or take away
from me the conviction that the prediction will be realized; therefore,
I tell you, were it true that we are pursued by Dubois's exempts--were
there a boat ready to take us to Belle Isle to escape them, so convinced
am I that the sea will be fatal to me, and that no other death has any
power over me, that I would give myself up to my pursuers, and say, 'Do
your worst; I shall not die by your hands.'"

The three Bretons had listened in silence to this strange declaration,
which gathered solemnity from the circumstances in which they stood.

"Then," said Du Couedic, after a pause, "we understand your courage, my
friend; believing yourself destined to one sort of death, you are
indifferent to all other danger; but take care, if the anecdote were
known, it would rob you of all merit; not in our eyes, for we know what
you really are; but others would say that you entered this conspiracy
because you can neither be beheaded, shot, nor killed by the dagger, but
that it would have been very different if conspirators were drowned."

"And perhaps they would speak the truth," said Pontcalec, smiling.

"But, my dear marquis," said Montlouis, "we, who have not the same
grounds for security, should, I think, pay some attention to the advice
of our unknown friend, and leave Nantes, or even France, as soon as
possible."

"But this may be wrong," said Pontcalec; "and I do not believe our
projects are known at Nantes or elsewhere."

"And probably nothing will be known till Gaston has done his work," said
Talhouet, "and then we shall have nothing to fear but enthusiasm, and
that does not kill. As to you, Pontcalec, never approach a seaport,
never go to sea, and you will live to the age of Methuselah!"

The conversation might have continued in this jocular strain; but at
this moment several gentlemen, with whom they had appointed a meeting,
came in by different secret ways, and in different costumes.

It was not that they had much to fear from the provincial police--that
of Nantes, though Nantes was a large town, was not sufficiently well
organized to alarm conspirators, who had in the locality the influence
of name and social position--but the police of Paris--the regent's
police, or that of Dubois--sent down spies, who were easily detected by
their ignorance of the place, and the difference of their dress and