betrayed
the blood of the mediaeval executioner was the formidable breadth
and thickness of his hands. Well informed too, caring greatly for his
position as a citizen and an elector, and an enthusiastic florist, this
tall, brawny man with his low voice, his calm reserve, his few words,
and a high bald forehead, was like an English nobleman rather than an
executioner. And a Spanish priest would certainly have fallen into the
mistake which Jacques Collin had intentionally made.

"He is no convict!" said the head warder to the governor.

"I begin to think so too," replied Monsieur Gault, with a nod to that
official.

Jacques Collin was led to the cellar-like room where Theodore Calvi,
in a straitwaistcoat, was sitting on the edge of the wretched camp bed.
_Trompe-la-Mort_, under a transient gleam of light from the passage,
at once recognized Bibi-Lupin in the gendarme who stood leaning on his
sword.

"Io sono Gaba-Morto. Parla nostro Italiano," said Jacques Collin very
rapidly. "Vengo ti salvar."

"I am _Trompe-la-Mort_. Talk our Italian. I have come to save you."

All the two chums wanted to say had, of course, to be incomprehensible
to the pretended gendarme; and as Bibi-Lupin was left in charge of
the prisoner, he could not leave his post. The man's fury was quite
indescribable.

Theodore Calvi, a young man with a pale olive complexion, light hair,
and hollow, dull, blue eyes, well built, hiding prodigious strength
under the lymphatic appearance that is not uncommon in Southerners,
would have had a charming face but for the strongly-arched eyebrows and
low forehead that gave him a sinister expression, scarlet lips of savage
cruelty, and a twitching of the muscles peculiar to Corsicans, denoting
that excessive irritability which makes them so prompt to kill in any
sudden squabble.

Theodore, startled at the sound of that voice, raised his head, and at
first thought himself the victim of a delusion; but as the experience
of two months had accustomed him to the darkness of this stone box,
he looked at the sham priest, and sighed deeply. He did not recognize
Jacques Collin, whose face, scarred by the application of sulphuric
acid, was not that of his old boss.

"It is really your Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get
you off. Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were
making a confession." He spoke with the utmost rapidity. "This young
fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid