The marquis received the warning without taking offence, but persisted none the less in his plan, with comical gravity. Emile trembled for his venerable host, and Corbeau quivered with anger and dread under that strange hand. He even tried to rebel, and from the marquis's gentle manner of dealing with his rebellion, you would have said that he was rather ill at ease himself. "There, there, my boy," he said, patting his neck, "let's not get excited." But that was only a consequence of his theories, which forbade the maltreatment of a horse as the crime of _lèse-science_. He gradually quieted his steed without punishing him, and riding him about his great bare gravelled courtyard as if it were a riding-school, he tried him at all his gaits, and with extraordinary ease made him go through all the various evolutions and changes of foot which he would have required from a well-schooled horse. Corbeau seemed to submit without effort; but when the marquis turned him over to Emile his distended nostrils and his quarters, dripping with sweat, revealed the mysterious power to which that firm hand and those long legs had subjected him. [Illustration: _MONSIEUR DE BOISGUILBAULT TRIES EMILE'S HORSE._ _He gradually quieted his steed without punishing him, and riding him about his great bare gravelled courtyard as if it were a riding-school, he tried him at all his gaits, and with extraordinary ease made him go through all the various evolutions and changes of foot which he would have required from a well-schooled horse._] "I had no idea that he knew so much!" said Emile, by way of flattering the marquis. "He's a very intelligent beast," was the modest reply. When Emile was in the saddle, Corbeau reared and plunged furiously, as if to revenge himself upon a less experienced rider for the wearisome lesson he had received. "That's a strange _dead man_!" said Emile to himself, as he rode rapidly along the path that led him back to Jean Jappeloup, thinking of that asthmatic marquis, who was covered with confusion before a child, and subdued a spirited horse. "Can it be that corpse-like face and that dead voice belong to a character of iron?" He found the carpenter exceedingly impatient and anxious; but when he had given him an account of the conference, he said: "That is first-rate; I am obliged to you and I place my interests in your hands. But a man must do what he can to help himself, and that is what I propose to do. While you go and write to the authorities, I will go and see them. Your writing will take time, and I cannot sleep until I have embraced my friends at Gargilesse in broad daylight, after vespers, on the steps of our church. I am off to the village----" "And suppose you are arrested on the way?"