The Senegalese came hastening up. While Ya-Bon felt for Patrice all the affection of a faithful dog, he seemed to profess towards Don Luis something more nearly approaching religious devotion. The adventurer's slightest action roused him to ecstasy. He never stopped laughing in the great chief's presence. "Ya-Bon, are you all right now? Is your wound healed? You don't feel tired? Good. In that case, come with me." He led him to the quay, a short distance away from Berthou's Wharf: "At nine o'clock this evening," he said, "you're to be on guard here, on this bench. Bring your food and drink with you; and keep a particular look-out for anything that happens over there, down stream. Perhaps nothing will happen at all; but never mind: you're not to move until I come back . . . unless . . . unless something does happen, in which case you will act accordingly." He paused and then continued: "Above all, Ya-Bon, beware of Siméon. It was he who gave you that wound. If you catch sight of him, leap at his throat and bring him here. But mind you don't kill him! No nonsense now. I don't want you to hand me over a corpse, but a live man. Do you understand, Ya-Bon?" Patrice began to feel uneasy: "Do you fear anything from that side?" he asked. "Look here, it's out of the question, as Siméon has gone . . ." "Captain," said Don Luis, "when a good general goes in pursuit of the enemy, that does not prevent him from consolidating his hold on the conquered ground and leaving garrisons in the fortresses. Berthou's Wharf is evidently one of our adversary's rallying-points. I'm keeping it under observation." Don Luis also took serious precautions with regard to Coralie. She was very much overstrained and needed rest and attention. They put her into the car and, after making a dash at full speed towards the center of Paris, so as to throw any spies off the scent, took her to the home on the Boulevard Maillot, where Patrice handed her over to the matron and recommended her to the doctor's care. The staff received strict orders to admit no strangers to see her. She was to answer no letter, unless the letter was signed "Captain Patrice." At nine o'clock, the car sped down the Saint-Germain and Mantes road. Sitting inside with Don Luis, Patrice felt all the enthusiasm of victory and indulged freely in theories, every one of which possessed for him the value of an unimpeachable certainty. A few doubts lingered in his mind, however, points which remained obscure and on which he would have been glad to have Don Luis' opinion. "There are two things," he said, "which I simply cannot understand. In the first place, who was the man murdered by Essarès, at nineteen minutes past seven in the morning, on the fourth of April? I heard his dying cries. Who was killed? And what became of the body?" Don Luis was silent; and Patrice went on: