“So!” cried Baptiste, as I fell back in my chair; “At last he sleeps! I began to think that he had scented our design, and that we should have been forced to dispatch him at all events.”

“And why not dispatch him at all events?” enquired the ferocious Jacques. “Why leave him the possibility of betraying our secret? Marguerite, give me one of my pistols: a single touch of the trigger will finish him at once.”