I think the only man outside Chateau Schneider who saw what was coming upon the new Government was my Hugolatre of a station-master up at the junction. I went to see him every day and he never ceased to urge me to clear out of the town lest worse should befall me. "They are arming," he said one day in early April, "they are coming nearer. Put your eye to that telescope--no, don't alter it--tell me what you see. A signal post on the railway--semaphore you call it! Yes, but did you ever see such a semaphore on a railway? With us the stiff arm drops and all is clear. It rises half-way--'_go slowly!_' It stands at right angles to the post--'_stop_--_the way is barred!_' But what do you see yonder? The stiff arms are moving this way and that. You who can Morse out a message on the telegraph apparatus, why cannot you read something infinitely more simple? That is on the other side of the river and tells me that the Government engineers are creeping nearer. There is no railway line where the semaphore is. They are signalling to their comrades on this side. The storm is gathering--be very sure. For the present there is no great hurry. Little Dictator Thiers has many irons in the fire. He has no time to read Hugo like me, nor has he time to give much thought to Aramon. But yonder are those who are preparing a path for his feet, and for the feet of his little Breton Moblots when the time comes." It appeared to me that I ought to look into this myself, but in a way that would not compromise my friend the station-master. So I made my way boldly up into St. Crispin's tower and turned the long spyglass, old as the first Napoleon, upon the semaphore ridge. It was wagging away cheerfully, spelling out messages which I could not understand. I went at once to Keller Bey. "The Government of Versailles is not so far off as you think," I said, "they are watching you from the other side of the river, and I believe talking across the water to the commanders of troops on this side." And with that I told him of the semaphore and of what I had seen from the tower of St. Crispin. He sent instantly for someone who could read semaphore messages, and within half an hour a deserter from the engineers quartered at Avignon was brought to him--a small, brown, snippet of a man whom I christened at sight "the runt," but whose real name was Pichon--one of a clan mighty in all the southland of Languedoc. Keller Bey came with us to witness the trial, and we had not reached the summit when we heard behind us the wheezing, asthmatic breathing of the Procureur Raoux sorely tried by the hasty ascent. "Why, why, why?" he gasped, poking his head through the door--"who gave you the liberty? Ah, Keller Bey--I beg your pardon. I was not aware of your presence."