He continued to listen, and now the silence made him tremble. He remembered his bargain with the innkeeper. The idea that he was the instigator of the crime which undoubtedly had just been committed deprived him of sleep. He dressed himself, and sat himself down on the side of his bed, with his drawn sword in his hand. In a quarter of an hour two more shrieks resounded through the night. Allegrignac sprang up as briskly as if in obedience to a hidden spring. These renewed cries alarmed him. “Everybody is having his throat cut!” said he to himself, growing more and more frightened. “My conscience has only to answer for one of the crimes; so, if Master Ali is too zealous, I am not responsible.” As a precaution, he rolled his bed against the door, put the table and chairs on the top of it, and kept watch. The rest of the night passed peaceably and quietly. The moon accomplished her nocturnal round, and when the sun reappeared, Allegrignac, ashamed of his panic, restored everything to its place. At seven o’clock Ali knocked at the door. “Here is what you want,” said he, placing a small sack on the count’s bed. “Have you the money ready?” “There it is.” “I should recommend you to lose no time in setting out, for I think I saw one of your companions this morning.” Allegrignac did not wait to hear this advice repeated. He went down-stairs, and, finding his horse ready at the door, he tied the sack to the saddle-bow, set spurs to his nag, and rode off at a gallop. Ali smiled to see him go, and then, when he was no longer in sight, turned into the apartment of the Baron of Mont-Rognon. “I have obeyed your orders, sir. Here is what you required.” And he flung a sack on the table, as he had already done in the case of Allegrignac. “There is the sum we agreed on,” said the baron, tendering him the twenty-five pieces. “Saddle my horse, I am in a hurry to be off!” “It is ready saddled,” said the landlord, taking the money; “your honour will find it at the foot of the stairs.” Mont-Rognon went out for the first time for a month. He attached the small sack to the saddle-bow as Allegrignac had done, and in a few minutes was out of sight. Ali did not on this day enter the two rooms occupied by Porc-en-Truie and Maragougnia. He spent his time in counting his money.