MY DEAR GENERAL--We have received your kind and noble letter by your brave and excellent messenger. We have about a hundred and fifty thousand francs in hand, and are therefore prepared to do as you request. Our new associate, to whom I have on my own authority given the name of Alcibiades, will start this evening, taking with him the first forty thousand francs. Every month you will be able to procure the forty thousand francs at the same bank. In case of our death or dispersion, the money will be divided and buried in as many different places as we have times forty thousand francs. Subjoined you will find a list of the names of those who will know what the sums are and where they will be deposited. Brother Alcibiades came just in time to be present at an execution; he has seen how we punish a traitor. I thank you, my dear general, for your very kind offer to my brother, but I intend to keep him out of danger until he may be called upon to take my place. My elder brother was shot, bequeathing to me the duty of avenging his death. I shall probably die upon the scaffold, and I shall die bequeathing a similar duty to my brother. He in his turn will enter the road that we have trodden; and he will contribute to the good cause as we have done, or will die as we shall. No less powerful a motive could induce me, while asking your friendship for him, to deprive him of your immediate protection. Send us again, as soon as you can spare him, our beloved brother Alcibiades; we shall be doubly glad to send you the message by such a messenger. MORGAN. The letter was approved by all, folded, sealed, and then given to Coster de Saint-Victor. At midnight the great portal of the Chartreuse opened to permit two horsemen to pass out. One, the bearer of the letter to Cadoudal, together with the desired sum, took the road to Mâcon. The other, carrying the corpse of Lucien de Fargas, was on his way to the Place de la Prefecture at Bourg. In the breast of the corpse was the knife with which he had been killed; and attached to the handle by a thread was the letter which the condemned man had written just before his death. CHAPTER IX THE COMTE DE FARGAS It is now necessary that our readers should learn who was the unfortunate young man whose body had been placed upon the Place de la Prefecture, and also who the young woman was who had alighted at the Hôtel des Grottes de Ceyzeriat in the same square.