Consequently, instead of slackening speed when he heard the firing, he only thought of quickening it. From a rapid walk he broke into a run, and soon reached the first trees of the forest of Machecoul. There, instead of following the road, which would have delayed him several minutes, he flung himself into a wood-path that he had taken more than once for the very purpose of shortening the way. Hurrying beneath the dark, overhanging dome of trees, falling sometimes into ditches, stumbling over stones, catching on thorny briers,--so dense was the darkness, so narrow the way,--he presently reached what was called the Devil's Vale. There he was in the act of jumping a brook which runs in the depths of it, when a man, springing abruptly from a clump of gorse, seized him so roughly that he knocked him down into the slimy bed of the brook, pressing the cold muzzle of a pistol to his forehead. "Not a cry, not a word, or you are a dead man!" said the assailant. The position was a frightful one for the young baron. The man put a knee on his chest, and held him down, remaining motionless himself, as though he were expecting some one. At last, finding that no one came, he gave the cry of the screech-owl, which was instantly answered from the interior of the wood, and the rapid steps of a man were heard approaching. "Is that you, Picaut?" said the man whose knee was on Michel's breast. "No, not Picaut; it is I," said the new-comer. "Who is 'I'?" "Jean Oullier." "Jean Oullier!" cried the other, with such joy that he raised himself partially, and thus relieved, to some extent, his prisoner. "Really and truly you? Did you actually get away from the red-breeches?" "Yes, thanks to all of you, my friends. But we have not a minute to lose if we want to escape a great disaster." "What's to be done? Now that you are free and here with us, all will go well." "How many men have you?" "Eight on leaving Montaigu; but the _gars_ of Vieille-Vigne joined us. We must be sixteen or eighteen by this time." "How many guns?" "Each man has one." "Good. Where are they stationed?" "Along the edge of the forest." "Bring them together." "Yes." "You know the crossway at the Ragots?" "Like my pocket." "Wait for the soldiers there, not in ambush but openly. Order fire when they are within twenty paces. Kill all you can,--so much vermin the less." "Yes. And then?" "As soon as your guns are discharged separate in two bodies,--one to escape by the path to La Cloutière, the other by the road to Bourgnieux. Fire as you run, and coax them to follow you." "To get them off their track, hey?" "Precisely, Guérin; that's it." "Yes; but--you?" "I must get to Souday. I ought to be there now." "Oh, oh, Jean Oullier!" exclaimed the peasant, doubtfully. "Well, what?" asked Jean Oullier. "Does any one dare to distrust me?" "No one says they distrust you; they only say they don't trust any one else."