‘Is this the fellow?’ said the turnkey, pushing me rudely with his foot.
‘Yes,’ replied Boivin, white with fear; ‘this is the boy; his name is Tristan.’ The latter words were accompanied with a look of great significance towards me.
‘What care we how he is called! let us hear in what manner he came here.’
‘I can tell you little,’ said I, staring and looking wildly around; ‘I must have been asleep, and dreaming, too.’
‘The letter,’ whispered Boivin to the turnkey--‘the letter says that he was made to inhale some poisonous drug, and that while insensible----’
‘Bah,’ said the other derisively, ‘this will not gain credit here; there has been complicity in the affair, Master Boivin. The commissaire is not the man to believe a trumped-up tale of the sort; besides, you are well aware that you are responsible for these “rats” of yours. It is a private arrangement between you and the commissaire, and it is not very probable that he’ll get himself into a scrape for you.’
‘Then what are we to do?’ cried Boivin passionately, as he wrung his hands in despair.
‘I know what I should, in a like case,’ was the dry reply.
‘_Laisser aller!_ was the curt rejoinder. ‘The young rogue has passed for a curé for the last afternoon; I’d even let him keep up the disguise a little longer, and it will be all the same by this time to-morrow.’
‘You’d send me to the guillotine for another?’ said I boldly; ‘thanks for the good intention, my friend; but Boivin knows better than to follow your counsel. Hear me one moment,’ said I, addressing the latter, and drawing him to one side--‘if you don’t liberate me within a quarter of an hour, I’ll denounce you and yours to the commissary. I know well enough what goes on at the “Scélérat,”--you understand me well. If a priest has really made his escape from the prison, you are not clean-handed enough to meet the accusation; see to it then, Boivin, that I may be free at once.’
‘Imp of Satan,’ exclaimed Boivin, grinding his teeth, ‘I have never enjoyed ease or quietness since the first hour I saw you.’
‘It may cost a couple of thousand francs, Boivin,’ said I calmly; ‘but what then? Better that than take your seat along with us to-morrow in the _Charrette Rouge_.’
‘Maybe he’s right, after all,’ muttered the turnkey in a half-whisper; ‘speak to the commissary.’