"Yes, it's myself, the constable. In the name of the law!" shouted Caillaud at the top of his voice, in order to be heard by anybody who happened to be within earshot. But he added in a whisper:--"Off with you, Père Jean. Come, stand me off and make your legs fly." "You want me to resist and so get my affairs into a worse mess than ever? No, Caillaud, that would be worse for me. But how could you make up your mind to do the work of a gendarme, to arrest the friend of your family, your godfather, unhappy man?" "But I don't arrest you, godfather," said Caillaud in an undertone. "Come, follow me, or I call for help!" he yelled with all his lungs. "Deuce take it!" he added under his breath, "be off, Père Jean; pretend to hit me and I'll fall." "No, my poor Caillaud, that would make you lose your position, or at least you would be called a coward, a faint-heart. As you have had the heart to accept the commission, you must go through with it. I see plainly enough that you were threatened, that your hand was forced; it surprises me that Monsieur Jarige could make up his mind to treat me this way." "But Monsieur Jarige isn't mayor any longer; Monsieur Cardonnet has his place." "Then I understand; and it makes me long to beat you as a lesson to you for not resigning at once." "You are right, Père Jean," said Caillaud in a heartbroken tone, "I'll go and resign now; that's the best way. Off with you!" "Let him go! and do you--keep your place," said Emile, coming out from behind a clump of bushes. "Down with you, comrade, as you want to fall," he added, adroitly tripping him up in schoolboy fashion, "and if you are asked who contrived this ambush, you can tell my father that his son did it." "Ah! it's a good scheme," said Caillaud, rubbing his knee, "and if your papa has you put in prison it's none of my business. You threw me down a little hard, all the same, and I should have preferred to fall on the grass. Well! has that old fool of a Jean gone yet?" "Not yet," said Jean, who had climbed a knoll and was prepared to take flight. "Thanks, Monsieur Emile, I shall not forget; I would have submitted to my fate, if the law alone had been concerned; but since I know that it's a piece of treachery on your father's part, I would rather throw myself head first into the river than give way to such a false, evil-minded man. As for you, you deserve to have come from better stock; you have a good heart, and as long as I live----" "Be off," said Emile, walking up to him, "and keep from speaking ill of my father. I have many things to say to you, but this is not the time. Will you be at Châteaubrun to-morrow night?" "Yes, monsieur. Take care that you are not followed, and don't ask for me in too loud a tone at the gate. Well, thanks to you I still have the stars over my head, and I am not sorry for it." He darted away like an arrow; and Emile, turning, saw Caillaud lying at full length on the ground, as if he had fainted.