om the gendarmes and from the galleys? More times than I can
count. And to reward me, you steal my property; you steal this man who
was mine----"

"He is insane!" said the terrified Chupin, "he is mad!"

Then the innkeeper changed his tactics.

"At least you will be reasonable," he exclaimed. "Let us see, Chupin,
what you will do for an old friend? Divide, will you not? No, you
say no? What will you give me, comrade? A third? Is that too much? A
quarter, then----"

Chupin felt that all the soldiers were enjoying his terrible
humiliation. They were sneering at him, and only an instant before they
had avoided coming in contact with him with evident horror.

Transported with anger, he pushed Balstain violently aside, crying to
the soldiers:

"Come--are we going to spend the night here?"

An implacable hatred gleamed in the eye of the Piedmontese.

He drew his knife from his pocket, and making the sign of the cross in
the air:

"Saint-Jean-de-Coche," he exclaimed, in a ringing voice, "and you, Holy
Virgin, hear my vow. May my soul burn in hell if I ever use a knife at
my repasts until I have plunged this, which I now hold, into the heart
of the scoundrel who has defrauded me!"

Having said this, he disappeared in the woods, and the soldiers took up
their line of march.

But Chupin was no longer the same. All his accustomed impudence
had fled. He walked on with bowed head, a prey to the most sinister
presentiments.

He felt assured that an oath like that of Balstain's, and uttered by
such a man, was equivalent to a death-warrant, or at least to a speedy
prospect of assassination.

This thought tormented him so much that he would not allow the
detachment to spend the night at Saint-Pavin, as had been agreed upon.
He was impatient to leave the neighborhood.

After supper Chupin sent for a cart; the prisoner, securely bound, was
placed in it, and the party started for Montaignac.

The great bell was striking two when Lacheneur was brought into the
citadel.

At that very moment M. d'Escorval and Corporal Bavois were making their
preparations for escape.

CHAPTER XXXII

Alone in his cell, Chanlouineau, after Marie-Anne's departure, abandoned
himself to the most frightful despair.

He had just given more than life to the woman he loved so fervently.

For had he not, in the hope of obtaining an interview with her, perilled
his honor by simulating the most ignoble fear? While doing so, he
thought only