Tartarin, with a shudder, swore that he had nothing to do with it. “We shall see!” The Italian tenor was now introduced,--in other words, the police spy whom the Nihilists had hung to the branch of an oak-tree on the Brünig, but whose life was miraculously saved by wood-choppers. The spy looked at Tartarin. “That is not the man,” he said; then at the delegates, “Nor they, either... A mistake has been made.” The prefect, furious, turned to Tartarin. “Then, what are you doing here?” he asked. “That is what I ask myself, _vé!_..” replied the president, with the aplomb of innocence. After a short explanation the Alpinists of Tarascon, restored to liberty, departed from the Castle of Chillon, where none have ever felt its oppressive and romantic melancholy more than they. They stopped at the Pension Müller to get their luggage and banner, and to pay for the breakfast of the day before which they had not had time to eat; then they started for Geneva by the train. It rained. Through the streaming windows they read the names of stations of aristocratic villeggiatura: Clarens, Vevey, Lausanne; red chalets, little gardens of rare shrubs passed them under a misty veil, the branches of the trees, the turrets on the roofs, the galleries of the hotels all dripping. Installed in one corner of a long railway carriage, on two seats facing each other, the Alpinists had a downcast and discomfited appearance. Bravida, very sour, complained of aches, and repeatedly asked Tartarin with savage irony: “Eh _bé!_you’ve seen it now, that dungeon of Bonnivard’s that you were so set on seeing... I think you have seen it, _qué?_” Excourbaniès, voiceless for the first time in his life, gazed piteously at the lake which escorted them the whole way: “Water! more water, _Boudiou!_.. after this, I ‘ll never in my life take another bath.” Stupefied by a terror which still lasts, Pascalon, the banner between his legs, sat back in his seat, looking to right and left like a hare fearful of being caught again... And Tartarin?.. Oh! he, ever dignified and calm, he was diverting himself by reading the Southern newspapers, a package of which had been sent to the Pension Müller, all of them having reproduced from the _Forum_ the account of his ascension, the same he had himself dictated, but enlarged, magnified, and embellished with ineffable laudations. Suddenly the hero gave a cry, a formidable cry, which resounded to the end of the carriage. All the travellers sat up excitedly, expecting an accident. It was simply an item in the _Forum_, which Tartarin now read to his Alpinists:--