"Not so fast!" said Gabriel; "despite all your resolution, you do not appreciate the formidable and extraordinary peril which may attend the almost superhuman conflict into which you and I are about to plunge; and after all, our efforts may be unrewarded,--remember that! Martin, consider all this carefully; the plan which I must carry out almost makes me afraid myself, when I examine it." "Very good! Danger and I are old acquaintances," said Martin, with a very self-sufficient air; "and when one has had the honor of being hanged--" "Martin," Gabriel interrupted, "we must defy the elements, exult in the tempest, laugh at the impossible!" "Indeed we will!" said Martin-Guerre. "To tell the truth, Monseigneur, since my hanging, the days which have passed over my head have seemed to me like days of grace; and I am not inclined to find fault with the good Lord for that portion of the surplus which He has seen fit to allot to me. Whatever the merchant lets you have over and above the bargain, there is no need to account for; if you do, you are either an ingrate or a fool." "Well, then, Martin, it's agreed, is it?" said Vicomte d'Exmès; "you will go with me and share my lot?" "To hell itself, Monseigneur! so long as you don't ask me to set Satan at defiance, for I am a good Catholic." "Have no fear on that score," said Gabriel. "By going with me you may perhaps endanger your welfare in this world, but not in the next." "That is all that I care to know," rejoined Martin. "But is there nothing else than my life, Monseigneur, that you ask of me?" "Yes," said Gabriel, smiling at the heroic ingenuousness of that question; "yes, indeed, Martin-Guerre, there is another great service that you must render me." "What is it, Monseigneur?" "I want you, as soon as possible,--this very day, if you can,--to find me a dozen or so companions of your mettle, daring and strong and resolute, who fear neither fire nor sword, who can endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold, who will obey like angels, and fight like devils. Can you do it?" "That depends. Will they be well paid?" asked Martin. "A piece of gold for every drop of their blood," said Gabriel. "My fortune causes me the least concern, alas! in the holy but perilous task which I must carry through to the end." "At that price, Monseigneur," said the squire, "I will get together in two hours that number of dare-devils, who will not complain of their wounds, I assure you. In France, and in Paris especially, the supply of that sort of blackguard never fails. But in whose service are they to be?" "In my own," said Vicomte d'Exmès. "I am going to make the campaign which I now have in mind as a volunteer, and not as captain of the Guards; so I need to have retainers of my own."