uld have
dissuaded him from it at all costs. I was not aware of it until he had
already reached the middle of the beam, the spot where the burnt wood
was perhaps nothing more than charcoal. How shall I describe to you
what I felt when I beheld my faithful friend in mid-air, gravely walking
toward his goal? Blaireau was trotting in front of him as calmly as in
the old days when it was a question of hunting through bundles of hay in
search of stoats and dormice. Day was breaking, and the hildalgo's slim
outline and his modest yet stately bearing could be clearly seen against
the gray sky. I put my hands to my face; I seemed to hear the fatal beam
cracking; I stifled a cry of terror lest I should unnerve him at this
solemn and critical moment. But I could not suppress this cry, or help
raising my head when I heard two shots fired from the tower. Marcasse's
hat fell at the first shot; the second grazed his shoulder. He stopped a
moment.

"Not touched!" he shouted at us.

And making a rush he was quickly across the aerial bridge. He got into
the tower through the gap and darted up the stairs, crying:

"Follow me, my lads! The beam will bear."

Immediately five other bold and active men who had accompanied him got
astride upon the beam, and with the help of their hands reached the
other end one by one. When the first of them arrived in the garret
whither Antony Mauprat had fled, he found him grappling with Marcasse,
who, quite carried away by his triumph and forgetting that it was not a
question of killing an enemy but of capturing him, set about lunging
at him with his long rapier as if he had been a weasel. But the sham
Trappist was a formidable enemy. He had snatched the sword from the
sergeant's hands, hurled him to the ground, and would have strangled
him had not a gendarme thrown himself on him from behind. With his
prodigious strength he held his own against the first three assailants;
but, with the help of the other two, they succeeded in overcoming him.
When he saw that he was caught he made no further resistance and let his
hands be bound together. They brought him down the stairs, which were
found to lead to the bottom of a dry well in the middle of the tower.
Antony was in the habit of leaving and entering by means of a ladder
which the farmer's wife held for him and immediately afterwards
withdrew. In a transport of delight I threw myself into my sergeant's
arms.

"A mere trifle," he said; "enjoyed it. I fo