into Daniel's
room, and exclaimed, while still in the door, with an air of intolerable
arrogance,--

"Well? I ask for justice; I am tired of jail. If I am guilty, let them
cut my throat; if I am innocent"--

But Daniel did not let him finish.

"That is the man!" he exclaimed; "I am ready to swear to it, that is the
man!"

Great as was the impudence of Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, he was
astonished, and looked with rapid, restless eyes at the chief surgeon,
at the magistrate, and last at Lefloch, who stood immovable at the foot
of the bed of his lieutenant. He had too much experience of legal forms
not to know that he had given way to absurd illusions,--and that his
position was far more dangerous than he had imagined. But what was their
purpose? what had they found out? and what did they know positively?
The effort he made to guess all this gave to his face an atrocious
expression.

"Did you hear that, Crochard?" asked the lawyer.

But the accused had recovered his self-control by a great effort; and he
replied,--

"I am not deaf." And there was in his voice the unmistakable accent
of the former vagabond of Paris. "I hear perfectly well; only I don't
understand."

The magistrate, finding that, where he was seated, he could not very
well observe Crochard, had quietly gotten up, and was now standing near
the mantle-piece, against which he rested.

"On the contrary," he said severely, "you understand but too well Lieut.
Champcey says you are the man who tried to drown him in the Dong-Nai. He
recognizes you."

"That's impossible!" exclaimed the accused. "That's impossible; for"--

But the rest of the phrase remained in his throat. A sudden reflection
had shown him the trap in which he had been caught,--a trap quite
familiar to examining lawyers, and terrible by its very simplicity. But
for that reflection, he would have gone on thus,--

"That's impossible; for the night was too dark to distinguish a man's
features."

And that would have been equivalent to a confession; and he would have
had nothing to answer the magistrate, if the latter had asked at once,--

"How do you know that the darkness was so great on the banks of the
Dong-Nai? It seems you were there, eh?"

Quite pallid with fright, the accused simply said,--

"The officer must be mistaken."

"I think not," replied the magistrate.

Turning to Daniel, he asked him,--

"Do you persist in your declaration, lieutenant?"

"More than ever, sir