The vigour, energy, and rough manner of the Chourineur had powerful effect on the prisoners, and a considerable number of them had ranged themselves on his side, and surrounded Germain, whilst the Skeleton's party drew around that ruffian. A bloody fray would have ensued, when there was heard in the yard the sonorous and measured tread of a piquet of infantry, always on guard in the prison. Pique-Vinaigre, profiting by the general stir and noise, had gained the yard, and, having knocked at the wicket of the entrance, had told the turnkeys what was passing in the day-room. The arrival of the soldiers put an end to this scene. Germain, the Skeleton, and the Chourineur were taken before the governor of La Force; the first to make his complaint, the two others to answer for creating a disturbance inside the gaol. The fright and suffering of Germain had been so great, his weakness so extreme, that he was obliged to lean on two of the turnkeys, in order to reach a chamber next to the governor's room. There he was very ill. His neck, excoriated as it was, bore the livid and bleeding imprint of the Skeleton's iron grasp; a few minutes more, and Rigolette's betrothed would have been strangled. The turnkey, who had taken an interest in Germain, gave him first assistance. When he had recovered, his first thought was of his deliverer. "Thanks for your kind cares, sir," he said to the turnkey. "But for that brave man, I must have been killed. Where is he?" "In the governor's room, telling him how the disturbance arose. It appears that but for him--" "I must have been killed. Oh, tell me his name! Who is he?" "His name I do not know, but they call him the Chourineur; he is an old offender." "And is his crime now very serious?" "Very; burglary in the night in an inhabited house," replied the turnkey. "He will probably have a similar dose to Pique-Vinaigre, fifteen or twenty years of hard labour." Germain shuddered; he would have preferred being bound by gratitude to a man less criminal. "How dreadful!" he said. "And yet this man without knowing me defended me; such courage, such generosity!" "Ah, these men have sometimes a touch of good! The main point is that you are saved. To-morrow you will have your private cell, and to-night you will sleep in the infirmary. So, courage, sir. The bad time is over; and when your pretty little visitor comes to see you, you can comfort her, for once in a cell you have nothing to fear; only you will do wisely, I think, not to tell her of this affair." "Certainly not; but I should like to thank my defender." "I have just been leaving the governor, who will now interrogate the Skeleton, and I shall take them both, the Skeleton to his dungeon directly, and the Chourineur to the Fosse aux Lions; he will be, besides, somewhat rewarded for what he has done for you; as he is a determined and stout fellow, he will probably replace the Skeleton as captain of the ward."