"Let us take off our shoes, and then they won't hear us as we follow," suggested the Chouette.
"You are right,--always right; let us tread like cats, my old darling."
The two monsters took off their shoes, and moved stealthily along, keeping in the shadows of the houses. By means of this stratagem they followed so closely, that, although within a few steps of Sarah and Tom, they did not hear them.
"Fortunately our hackney-coach is at the end of the street; the rain falls in torrents. Are you not cold, Sarah?"
"Perhaps we shall glean something from this smuggler,--this Bras Rouge," said Sarah, in a thoughtful tone, and not replying to her brother's inquiry.
He suddenly stopped, and said, "I have taken a wrong turning; I ought to have gone to the right when I left the tavern; we must pass by a house in ruins to reach the _fiacre_. We must turn back."
The Schoolmaster and the Chouette, who followed on the heels of their intended victims, retreated into the dark porch of a house close at hand, so that they might not be perceived by Tom and Sarah, who, in passing, almost touched them with their elbows.
"I am glad they have gone that way," said the Schoolmaster, "for if the 'cove' resists, I have my own idea."
Sarah and her brother, having again passed by the _tapis-franc_, arrived close to the dilapidated house, which was partly in ruins, and its opened cellars formed a kind of gulf, along which the street ran in that direction. In an instant, the Schoolmaster, with a leap resembling in strength and agility the spring of a tiger, seized Seyton with one hand by the throat, and exclaimed, "Your money, or I will fling you into this hole!"
Then the brigand, pushing Seyton backwards, shoved him off his balance, and with one hand held him suspended over the mouth of the deep excavation; whilst, with his other hand, he grasped the arm of Sarah, as if in a vice. Before Tom could make the slightest struggle, the Chouette had emptied his pockets with singular dexterity. Sarah did not utter a cry, nor try to resist; she only said, in a calm tone, "Give up your purse, brother;" and then accosting the robber, "We will make no noise; do not do us any injury."
The Chouette, having carefully searched the pockets of the two victims of this ambush, said to Sarah, "Let's see your hands, if you've got any rings. No," said the old brute, grumblingly, "no, not one ring. What a shame!"