"Or any one else?" he said, in a low voice. "There was the boy who disappeared, for instance." "But he did not know our hiding-place when he left. He did not know how near we then were to it. He did not then know that I was La Tournoire." "But there was much talk of La Tournoire on the journey. Did you at any time drop any hint of this place, and how it might be reached?" "None that could have reached his ears. I told only Mlle. de Varion, and we were quite alone when I did so." Blaise looked at the ground in silence. After some time he gave a heavy sigh, and, raising his eyes, said: "Monsieur, I have been thinking of many things of late. Certain matters have had a strange appearance. But,--well, perhaps my thoughts have been absurd, and, in short, I have nothing to say about them except this, monsieur, it is well to be on one's guard always against every one!" I was about to ask him whether he meant that the boy Pierre had been guilty of eavesdropping and treachery, and to reprove him for that unworthy suspicion, when there was a noise at the gate. Looking thither, I saw two of my men, Sabray and Roquelin, conducting into the courtyard three starved-looking persons, who leaned wearily on one another's shoulders, and seemed ready to drop with fatigue. "We found these wretches in the woods," explained Sabray. "They are Catholics, although that one tried to hide his cross and shouted, 'Down with the mass!' when we told them to surrender in the name of the Sieur de la Tournoire." "It is true that I was a Catholic," whined the bedraggled fop who had belonged to De Berquin's band of four; "but I was just about to abjure when these men came up." "I will abjure twice over, if it pleases monsieur," put in the tall Spanish-looking ruffian. "Nothing would delight me more than to be a Huguenot. By the windpipe of the Pope, for a flagon of wine I would be a Jew!" "And I a damned infidel Turk," wearily added their fat comrade, "for a roast fowl, and a place to lay my miserable body!" At this moment the fop's eyes fell on Blaise. "Saint Marie!" he cried, falling to his knees. "We are dead men. It is the big fellow we trussed up at the inn!" "Belly of Beelzebub, so it is!" bellowed Blaise, pulling out his sword. Turning to Jeannotte, who had just reappeared in the courtyard, he roared: "It is now my father's spirit that controls me!"