"That is so. Come quick, my old seaman," said the captain to his sailor, indicating with his eye one of the large trees of the boulevard, several of whose branches hung over the garden wall. "Up, Sans-Plume, while we are waiting the hour let us see if we can rig the thing." "Captain, there is still a bit of twilight, and I see below a man who is coming this way." "Then let us wait. Hide first your bag behind the trunk of this tree,--you have forgotten nothing?" "No, captain, all my rigging is in there." "Come, then, let us go. This man is coming; we must not look as if we were lying to before these walls." "That's it, captain, we'll stand upon another tack so as to put him out of his way." And the two sailors began, as Sans-Plume had said in his picturesque language, to stand the other tack in the path parallel to the public walk, after the sailor had prudently picked up the bag he had hidden between the trees of the boulevard and the wall. "Sans-Plume," said the young man, as they walked along, "are you sure you recognise the spot where the hackney-coach awaits us?" "Yes, captain--But, I say, captain." "What?" "That man looks as if he were following us." "Bah!" "And spying on us." "Come along, Sans-Plume, you are foolish!" "Captain, let us set the prow larboard and you go and see." "So be it," replied the captain. And, followed by his sailor, he left the walk on the right of the boulevard, crossed the pavement, and took the walk on the left. "Well, captain," said Sans-Plume, in a low voice, "you see this lascar navigates in our waters." "That is true, we are followed." "It is not the first time it has happened to me," said Sans-Plume, with a shade of conceit, hiding one-half of his mouth with the back of his hand in order to eject the excess of tobacco juice produced by the mastication of his enormous quid. "One day, in Senegal, Gorée, I was followed a whole league, bowsprit on stern, captain, till I came to a plantation of sugar-cane, and--" "The devil! that man is surely following us," said the captain, interrupting the indiscreet confidences of the sailor. "That annoys me!" "Captain, do you wish me to drop my bag and flank this lascar with tobacco, in order to teach him to ply to our windward in spite of us?" "Fine thing! but do you keep still and follow me." The captain and his sailor, again crossing the pavement, regained the walk on the right. "See, captain," said Sans-Plume, "he turns tack with us." "Let him go, and let us watch his steps." The man who followed the two sailors, a large, jolly-looking fellow in a blue blouse and cap, went beyond them a few steps, then stopped and looked up at the stars, for the night had fully come. The captain, after saying a few words in a low tone to the sailor who had hidden himself behind the trunk of one of the large trees of the boulevard, advanced alone to meet his disagreeable observer, and said to him: "Comrade, it is a fine evening." "Very fine."