On my honour I could not have told him. I felt only to myself that if this man baulked me of my liberty I should kill him with my hands. But doubtless indignation was my bad counsellor. “How!” he muttered, with a menacing devil in his voice. “Does the fool know me?” I broke into wicked laughter. “Hear the unconscious humorist!” I cried--and the cry seemed to reel in my throat; for on the instant, dull and fateful, clanged the first note of the hour. Now God knows what had urged me to this insanity of defiance, when it was obvious that my best hope lay in throwing a sop of lies to my Cerberus. God knows, I say; and to Him I leave the explanation. Yet, having fallen upon this course, I can assert that not once during the day had I felt in such good savour with myself. He came forward again with a raging malediction. “Thy pledge!” he hissed; “the paper--the treasure! God’s name! dost thou know who it is thou triflest with?” I heard the rumble of wheels over the stones down below. My very soul seemed to rock as if it were launched on waves of air. The wheels stopped. “Listen,” I said, in a last desperation. “It was a ruse, a lie to gain time. I know of no treasure, nor, if I did, would I acquaint thee of its hiding-place.” A terrible silence succeeded. I stood with clinched hands. Had I heard the cart move away again I should have thrown myself upon this demon and sought to strangle him. Then, “Oh, my God! oh, my God!” he said twice, in a dreadful strained voice, and that was all. Suddenly he made a swift movement towards me. I stood rigid, still with my back to the damning grate; but, come within a foot of me, he as suddenly wheeled and went to the door. “Open, Gamache,” he whispered, like a man winded, and tapped on the oak: “open--I have something to say to thee.” In another moment I was alone. I turned, and, in a frenzy of haste, drove the bars right and left with all my force. Like a veritable ape of destiny I leapt to the sill and looked down. A white face stared up at me. The owner of it was already in the act of gathering his reins together. I heard a soft tremulous _ouf!_ issue from his lips, and on the breath of it I dropped and alighted with a thud upon something that squelched beneath my weight. As I got to my knees, he on the driving-board was already whipping his horses to a canter. “Quick, quick!” he said. “Come up and sit here beside me.” I managed to do so, though the cargo we carried gave perilous foothold. Then at once I turned and regarded my preserver. “Saints in heaven!” I whispered, “Crépin!” * * * * * * * He was a very _sans-culotte_, and his face and eyebrows were darkened. But I knew him. “Well,” he said; “I am no rogue of a Talma to act a part. But what, in God’s name, delayed thee?” “Fouquier-Tinville.” His jaw dropped at me. “_Si fait vraiment_,” I said, and gave him the facts.