"I confess that I have little taste for executions when my excitement has subsided," replied Bois-Doré, "and that I should have avoided witnessing that one. If I had turned him over to the provost, I should have been obliged to say what I had done with his master, and, as we must keep quiet on that point for the moment, it is all for the best. I consider my dear Florimond's death sufficiently avenged, although the Moor did not see which of the two, the master or the servant, dealt the blow that ended his poor life; but in affairs of this sort, Adamas, the most guilty, perhaps the real culprit, is he who directs it. The servant sometimes deems it his duty to obey a wicked order, and this fellow evidently did not act on his own account or profit by my brother's wealth, since he has remained a servant as before." Adamas did not share the longing to be indulgent which the marquis experienced after his outburst of energy. He hated Sancho even more bitterly than D'Alvimar, because of his arrogant manner toward his equals, and because of his wariness, in which he had been unable to find any flaw. He considered him quite capable of having advised and executed the crime, but the thing that he dreaded more than all else was the possible persecution of the marquis; so he assisted him to deceive himself concerning the importance of the capture which he was compelled to renounce. When they reached the gate of the manor of Briantes, they heard the irregular galloping of a riderless horse. It proved to be Sancho's, which had returned to its lost stable. He exchanged a plaintive, almost funereal neigh with D'Alvimar's steed, which a servant was leading by the rein. "These poor creatures feel the disasters that befall their masters, so it is said," observed the marquis to Adamas: "they are intelligent beasts and live in a state of innocence. For that reason I shall not have these two killed; but as I do not choose to have anything on my estate that ever belonged to that D'Alvimar, and as the price of his property would soil our hands, I propose that they shall be taken ten or twelve leagues away to-morrow night and set at liberty. Whoever will may reap the benefit." "And in that way," said Adamas, "no one will know where they come from. You can entrust Aristandre with that mission, monsieur. He will not yield to the temptation to sell them for his own benefit, and, if you take my advice, you will let him start at once, and not take them into the courtyard. It is useless to allow these horses to be seen in your stable to-morrow." "Do what you choose, Adamas," replied the marquis. "I am reminded that that miserable wretch must have had money upon him, and that I should have remembered to take it and give it to the poor." "Let the lay brother have the benefit of it, monsieur," said the shrewd Adamas; "the more he finds in the dead man's pockets, the better assured you will be of his silence."