At this movement, which he took for a hostile demonstration, the man in black recoiled with an ill-disguised start of terror, but feeling himself backed up by his acolytes, he at once resumed his coolness, and answered with a smile of evil augury-- "Ah! Ah! The Count Ludovic de Barmont, I believe," he remarked with an ironical bow. "Yes, sir," the gentleman replied haughtily, "I am the Count de Barmont." "Captain in the navy," the man in black imperturbably added, "at present, commanding His Majesty's, frigate The Erigone." "As I told you, sir, I am the person you are in search of," the Count added. "It is really with you that I have to deal, my lord," he replied, as he drew himself up. "S'death, my good gentleman, you are not easy to catch up; I have been running after you for a week, and was almost despairing about having the honour of a meeting." All this was said with an obsequious air, a honeyed voice, and with a sweet smile, sufficient to exasperate a saint, and much more the person whom the strange man was addressing, and who was endowed with anything but a placable character. "By Heaven!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot passionately; "Are we to have much more of this?" "Patience, my good sir," he replied in the same placid tone; "patience, good Heaven, how quick you are!" then after taking a glance at the papers he held in his hand, "Since by your own confession you allow yourself to be really Count Ludovic de Barmont, captain commanding His Majesty's frigate Erigone, by virtue of the orders I bear, I arrest you in the King's name, for the crime of desertion; for having without authorization abandoned your vessel in a foreign country, that is to say, at the Port of Lisbon, in Portugal." Then raising his head and fixing his squinting eyes on the gentleman, he added, "Surrender your sword to me, my lord." M. de Barmont shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "The sword of a gentleman of my race shall never be placed in the hands of a scoundrel of your stamp," he said, with contempt; and drawing his sword, he coldly broke the blade across his knee, and threw the fragments through the window panes, which they broke. Then he drew his pistols from his belt and cocked them. "Sir, sir!" the myrmidon exclaimed, recoiling in terror, "This is rebellion, remember, rebellion against the express orders of His Majesty and His Eminence the Cardinal Minister." The Count smiled disdainfully, and raising his pistols in the air, fired them, the bullets being buried in the ceiling; then clasping them by the barrel he threw them also out of the window; after which he crossed his hands on his chest, and said coolly-- "Now do with me what you please." "Have you surrendered, my lord?" the fellow asked with ill-disguised alarm. "Yes, from this moment I am your prisoner." The man in black breathed again; although he was unarmed, the haughty gentleman still made him feel uncomfortable.