In obedience to this summons, the _corps de garde_ filed into the room, twenty-seven strong, and as soon as the last man entered, the officer addressed them, saying, as he pointed to Ravalette, “This gentleman thinks to escape. See to it that he does not pass you alive. The very instant that he appears unattended by myself, fire upon him. I so command you: see that my orders are executed. Does that suit you, Monsieur Ravalette?” “Perfectly--perfectly! nothing could be better,” said the latter. “You will place fourteen men around the house to watch the windows, and the other thirteen you will distribute on the stairs and landing,” said the commissary. “It shall be done,” said the sergeant, as he marched his men from the chamber--but not till I had placed a double-barrelled Deringer and a Colt’s revolver, both freshly capped and loaded, in his hands--for I hated Ravalette; man or demon, I hated him religiously--that being the strongest kind of dislike--and I had an intense desire to ascertain whether he was bullet-proof or not. During all this time, the father, daughter, lover, myself, and the commissary’s two comrades had said nothing, but at a sign from Ravalette we took our seats in such a position that we commanded the hall-door, that between the two rooms, the recess, the cupboard, and the windows on either side. The commissary placed the convex side of the screen toward us, in the middle of the room, and then taking a seat by my side, said, that so far as he was concerned, all was ready, and from the pallor of his lips, the tone in which he spoke, and from the frequency with which he crossed himself and muttered an orison, compounded of bad French and worse Latin, it was clear that he wished his hands well washed of the whole affair.