"They belong to the Republic, which amounts to the same thing." "Then the Republic does not cultivate the land which it confiscates?" "As if it had the time! It has plenty of other things to do, has this Republic." "What has it to do?" "It has to make a new skin." "True--it is putting on its third. Do you bother your head with such things?" "Oh! a little in my spare time. Our neighbors of the Jura have sent the Republic General Pichegru, just the same." "Yes." "They can't have liked that very well over yonder. But here I am chattering and wasting your time. After all, though, if you are going to Seillon, you need not hurry." "Why not?" "Why, because there is no one there." "No one?" "The deuce, not unless it be the ghosts of the old monks, and they don't appear until midnight, so you will have to wait." "Are you sure, my friend," persisted the traveller, "that there is _no one_ at the abbey of Seillon?" And he emphasized the words. "I passed there yesterday, when I was carrying some fish to Madame de Montrevel at the Château des Noires-Fontaines; there was not even a cat there." Then he added emphatically: "They were all priests of Baal, so there is not much harm done." The traveller started, more visibly than at first. "_Priests of Baal?_" he asked, looking fixedly at the fisherman. "Yes, and unless you come from a certain king of Israel whose name I have forgotten--" "From King Jehu, you mean, do you not?" "I am not sure; it was a king who was consecrated by a prophet--named--named--What was the name of the prophet who consecrated King Jehu?" "Elisha," responded the traveller, without hesitation. "That is it. But he consecrated him on one condition. What was that condition? Help me to remember." "That he punish the crimes of the house of Ahab and Jezebel." "The deuce! Tell me about it at once;" and he held out his hand to the traveller. The traveller and the fisherman gave each other a final sign of recognition, which left neither of them in doubt that they both belonged to the same association. However, they did not question each other as to their personal affairs, nor as to the work which they both had in hand, the one in going to the abbey of Seillon, the other in setting his lines and tents. But the young fisherman said: "I am sorry that I am kept here by superior orders; if it were not for that I would gladly serve as your guide; but I cannot return to the Chartreuse until they have given me the signal. But there is no longer any need to deceive you. You see those two black masses of which one is higher than the other? The higher one is the town of Bourg; the lower the village of Saint-Denis. Pass between the two at an equal distance, and continue on your way until you are stopped by the bed of the Reissouse. You can cross it, for the water will scarcely reach to your horse's knees; then you will see a great black curtain before you. That is the forest."