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.
“Then I saw that they took me for the assassin. I recovered force and energy enough to free myself from the hands of those who held me, while I managed to stammer forth:
“ ‘I did not do it! Indeed, indeed I did not!’
“A couple of gendarmes held the muzzles of their carbines against my breast.
“ ‘Stir but a step,’ said they, ‘and you are a dead man.’
“ ‘Why should you threaten me with death,’ cried I, ‘when I have already declared my innocence?’
“ ‘Tush, tush,’ cried the men; ‘keep your innocent stories to tell to the judge at Nîmes. Meanwhile, come along with us; and the best advice we can give you is to do so unresistingly.’
“Alas, resistance was far from my thoughts. I was utterly overpowered by surprise and terror; and without a word I suffered myself to be handcuffed and tied to a horse’s tail, and thus they took me to Nîmes.
“I had been tracked by a customs-officer, who had lost sight of me near the tavern; feeling certain that I intended to pass the night there, he had