"Oh, Monseigneur," resumed Martin, "in the name of mercy, let me tell my story as I know it! It is difficult for me to understand matters myself. You may criticise when I am done. As soon as the enemy recognized me, Monseigneur, I confess that I resigned myself to my fate; for I knew--and in reality you yourself know as well as I, Monseigneur--that there are two of me, and that very often, and without giving me any warning whatever, my other self makes me do his pleasure. Perhaps I should say, then, '_We_ accepted _our_ fate;' for hereafter I shall speak of myself--of _us_, that is--in the plural. Gudule--a pretty little Flemish girl, whom we had carried off--also recognized us, which cost us, I may say parenthetically, a perfect hailstorm of blows. Truly, we ourselves alone failed to recognize ourselves. To tell you all the misery which followed, and into the hands of how many different masters, all endowed with different dialects, your unfortunate squire fell, one after the other, would take too long, Monseigneur." "Yes; pray shorten your self-condolence." "I pass over these and worse sufferings. My number two, I was informed, had already escaped once; and they beat me almost to a jelly for his fault. My number one--whose conscience I have in my keeping, and whose martyrdom I am relating to you--succeeded in escaping once more, but was foolish enough to allow himself to be caught, and was left for dead on the spot, notwithstanding which I ran away a third time; but being entrapped a third time, by the double treason of too much wine and a chance acquaintance, I showed fight, and laid about me with all the fury of despair and drunkenness. In short, after having mocked me and tortured me most of the night in most barbarous fashion, my executioners hanged me toward morning." "Hanged you!" exclaimed Gabriel, believing that the squire's mania was surely becoming hopeless. "They hanged you, Martin! What do you mean by that?" "I mean, Monseigneur, that they hoisted me up between earth and sky at the end of a hempen cord, which was firmly attached to a gibbet, otherwise called a gallows; and in all the tongues and patois with which they have belabored my ears that is commonly called being hanged, Monseigneur. Do I make myself clear?" "None too clear, Martin; for to tell the truth, for a man that has been hanged--"