"No; I thought I received a blow from a stick on the shoulder, but now the whole arm is getting numb." "Try to move it." "Well, in any case, there is nothing broken. See!" And he moved his arm with comparative ease. "Good! This will certainly win you the heart you love, and if your noble conduct is not enough, I promise to intervene in your behalf; and I have good reason to think my intervention will be effectual." "How kind you are, Ma--Petit-Pierre! And whatever you order me to do, I'll do it after such a promise; even if I have to attack a battery of a hundred guns single-handed, I'll go, head down, to the redoubt. Ah, if you would only speak to the Marquis de Souday for me, I should be the happiest of men!" "Don't gesticulate in that way; you will prevent the blood from stanching. So it seems it is the marquis you are particularly afraid of. Well, I'll speak to him, your terrible marquis, on the word of--of Petit-Pierre. But now, as they have left us alone to ourselves, let us talk about our present affairs. Where are we?--and who are these persons?" "To me," said Michel, "they look like Chouans." "Do Chouans stop inoffensive travellers? Impossible!" "They do, though." "I am shocked." "Well, if they have not done it before, they have done it now, apparently." "What will they do with us?" "That we shall soon know; for see, they are beginning to bestir themselves,--about us, no doubt!" "Goodness!" exclaimed Petit-Pierre; "how odd it will be if we are in danger from my own partisans! But hush!" Maître Jacques, after conferring for some time with Aubin Courte-Joie, gave the order to bring the prisoners before him. Petit-Pierre advanced confidently toward the tree, on which the master of the burrow held his assizes; but Michel who, on account of his wound and his bound hands, found some difficulty in getting on his legs, took more time in obeying the order. Seeing this, Aubin Courte-Joie made a sign to Trigaud-Vermin, who, seizing the young man by the waist, lifted him with the ease another man would have had in lifting a child three years old, and placed him before Maître Jacques, taking care to put him in precisely the same attitude from which he had taken him,--a man[oe]uvre Trigaud-Vermin accomplished by swinging forward Michel's lower limbs and poking him in the back before he let him fall at full length on the ground. "Stupid brute!" muttered Michel, who had lost under the effect of pain some of his natural timidity. "You are not civil," said Maître Jacques; "no, I repeat to you, Monsieur le Baron Michel de la Logerie, you are not civil, and the kindness of that poor fellow deserved a better return. But come, let's attend to our little business!" Casting a more observing look at the young man, he added, "I am not mistaken; you are M. le Baron Michel de la Logerie, are you not?" "Yes," replied Michel, laconically.