"Explain!" exclaimed the man who was called D'Aunay and who appeared to be the boldest of the two--while he regarded the captain with an assumed air of fierceness and disdain. "Explain! What shall I explain? That we are two gentlemen of Gascony." "_Sans doute_," the captain muttered under his teeth. "_Oui, monsieur, sans doute_," repeated the fellow, who had overheard his whisper. "Of Gascony, I repeat. From Tarbes, and resident at Paris." "Amiens scarcely lies on the route between those places," the captain remarked quietly. "Permit that I make myself clear. We had been to your great fair in this fine city, and, by St. Firmin, had much enjoyed ourselves and were riding back to Paris when, by great misfortune, my friend, who suffers much from a painful and distracting vertigo, fell from his horse. Naturally, I remained to solace and console him, and 'twas there that your sergeant--who, you will pardon me for saying, possesses not manners of the highest refinement and appears to combine the calling of a _mouchard_ with that of a soldier--burst in upon our privacy, and has added to his insults by dragging us back here." "You have your papers, doubtless?" the captain asked. "Doubtless--at Paris. They are there." "Is it usual for gentlemen of--of Gascony to travel with such jewellery and gems as these?" "_Monsieur le capitaine_," said the man named D'Aunay, "you will pardon me if I say that it is usual for gentlemen of Gascony to do precisely whatever it seems best to them. At the same time they are respecters most profound of the law. Therefore, monsieur, if you have had any complaint of jewellery stolen, I am willing to give a more full account of that which is in our possession." He was a bold villain--yet, perhaps, more of a crafty one. On the road from Paris to Amiens his sharpness had gathered something from the troopers, chatting among themselves, of what they were being brought back for, and he knew that it was for murder, and not robbery, that they were wanted. Therefore, being innocent of the former, he brazened it out as regards the latter, though all the while thinking that there was, probably, as great a hue and cry after those who had robbed the man near the cathedral as those who had murdered the other one. That the captain of the guard was nonplussed his equally sharp eyes saw at once; and he drew himself up a little more to his full height and regarded the other with a still more assured air of haughty disdain. However, the captain went on: "There was a murder committed five nights ago in the Place de la Cathédrale----" "_Nom d'un chien!_" interrupted D'Aunay, "is it murder we are accused of next? Excellent! Go on, monsieur. There are still other crimes in the decalogue."