“Upon reaching the room below, I found five or six customhouse officers, and two or three gendarmes⁠—all heavily armed. They threw themselves upon me. I made no resistance; I was no longer master of my senses. When I strove to speak, a few inarticulate sounds alone escaped my lips.

“As I noticed the significant manner in which the whole party pointed to my bloodstained garments, I involuntarily surveyed myself, and then I discovered that the thick warm drops that had so bedewed me as I lay beneath the staircase must have been the blood of La Carconte. I pointed to the spot where I had concealed myself.

“ ‘What does he mean?’ asked a gendarme.

“One of the officers went to the place I directed.

“ ‘He means,’ replied the man upon his return, ‘that he got in that way;’ and he showed the hole I had made when I broke through.