"Show me to my room, and when the person who inquires for Master Dupont comes, bring him to me at once. Do you understand?" "Perfectly, monsieur." "And as soon as the person comes you are to serve breakfast." "Very well, monsieur. I will show you to your room now." "Is it a front room?" "Yes, monsieur, with two large windows." "I want some of your best wine, remember." "Give yourself no uneasiness; you will be perfectly satisfied, I think," replied the innkeeper. About a quarter of an hour afterward a second guest entered the inn. This man also wore a heavy pea-jacket, and his swarthy skin, jet-black hair, and hard, almost repulsive features gave him a decidedly sinister appearance. After casting a quick glance around, the newcomer said, in bad French, and with an Italian accent, for he was a native of the island of Malta: "Is there a man named Dupont here?" "Yes, monsieur, and I will take you to his room at once if you will follow me." Subsequently, when the host had placed breakfast on the table, he received orders to retire and not return until he was summoned. As soon as the two strangers found themselves alone together, the Maltese, striking the table a terrible blow with his clenched fist, exclaimed in English: "That dog of a smuggler has backed out; all is lost!" "What are you saying?" "The truth, as surely as I would take delight in burying this knife in the heart of the coward who betrayed us," and as he spoke he plunged his knife into the table. "Damnation!" exclaimed the Englishman, startled out of his usual phlegm, "and the captain is to pass through the town about nightfall." "Are you sure?" "This morning just as I was leaving Dieppe our friend told me that the captain had ordered post-horses for four o'clock this afternoon, so he will arrive here between five and six." "_Mille tonnerres!_ everything seemed to favour our plans, and but for this miserable smuggler--" "Pietri, the case is not so desperate as you think, perhaps, after all. At all events this violence will avail nothing, so let us talk the matter over calmly." "Calmly, when rage fairly blinds me!" "A blind man can not see his road." "If you can be calm, you do not hate this man as I do." "I do not?" It is impossible to give the reader any adequate conception of the tone in which the Englishman uttered these words. After a pause, he resumed, in a tone of concentrated hatred: "I must hate him worse than you hate him, Pietri, as I do not wish to kill him." "A dead serpent bites no more."