He ventured to look fearfully up and down the street. Tables scattered pell-mell, the unsavoury remnants of fraternal suppers, a couple of smouldering braziers, collectively met his gaze. And, at one point, sprawling across a table, with head lost between outstretched arms, a figure, apparently asleep, perhaps dead. Bertrand, now nothing but a bundle of nerves, could hardly suppress a cry of terror. It seemed to him as if his life depended on whether that sprawling figure was alive or dead. But he dared not approach in order to make sure. For a while he waited, sinking more and more deeply into the shadows, watching that motionless form on which his life depended. The figure did not move, and gradually Bertrand nerved himself up to confidence and then to action. He buried his head in the folds of his coat-collar and his hands in the pockets of his breeches, and with silent, stealthy footsteps he started to make his way down the street. At first he looked back once or twice at the immobile figure sprawling across the table. It had not moved, still appeared as if it might be dead. Then Bertrand took to his heels and, no longer looking either behind him or to the right or left, with elbows pressed close to his side, he started to run in the direction of the Tuileries. A minute later, the motionless figure came back to life, rose quickly and with swift, noiseless tread, started to run in the same direction. §2 In the cabarets throughout the city, the chief topic of conversation was the mysterious event of the Rue St. Honoré. Those who had seen it all had marvellous tales to tell of the hero of the adventure. "The man was eight or else nine feet high; his arms reached right across the street from house to house. Flames spurted out of his mouth when he coughed. He had horns on his head; cloven feet; a forked tail!" These were but a few of the asseverations which rendered the person of the fictitious citizen Rateau a legendary one in the eyes of those who had witnessed his amazing prowess. Those who had not been thus favoured listened wide-eyed and open-mouthed. But all agreed that the mysterious giant was in truth none other than the far-famed Englishman--that spook, that abominable trickster, that devil incarnate, known to the Committees as the Scarlet Pimpernel. "But how could it be the Englishman?" was suddenly put forward by citizen Hottot, the picturesque landlord of the Cabaret de la Liberté, a well-known rendezvous close to the Carrousel. "How could it be the Englishman who played you that trick, seeing that you all say it was citizen Rateau who . . . The devil take it all!" he added, and scratched his bald head with savage vigour, which he always did whene'er he felt sorely perplexed. "A man can't be two at one and the same time; nor two men become one. Nor . . . Name of a name of a dog!" concluded the worthy citizen, puffing and blowing in the maze of his own puzzlement like an old walrus that is floundering in the water.