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I have seen him; but he has never deigned to notice me." "So you are going to travel together?" "He in the imperial, I in the coupe." "Where does this diligence run?" "To Andelys." "Then that is where Marius is going?" "Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius' plan of travel."
On we went, then, once more, this time up, over, and down a succession of steep hills, until at last we reached Gaillon station, and found to our delight that the train would not start for another twenty minutes. All our companions took tickets for Rouen, whence they intended to proceed to Dieppe or Le Havre.
"Will you put on a dress a la Grecque this evening, and come to the Opera?" The shudder with which the Countess received the suggestion was a mute reply. Early in December 1833, a man, whose perfectly white hair and worn features seemed to show that he was aged by grief rather than by years, was walking at midnight along the Rue Gaillon.
On board ship Roberval felt more or less assured of safety; but as his destination drew nigh he made up his mind that, once on land, Gaillon must be put out of the way, or he would not be free one moment from the terror of assassination. Gaillon himself was quick to divine all that passed in Roberval's mind.
A watch was secretly set, and a few nights afterwards the thief was caught, and proved to be no other than Gaillon.
It was Gaillon. "Pardon, Sieur," he murmured in the nobleman's ear, "but some one has obtained access to the prisoner in the hold. I fear lest he may be planning an escape." Roberval swore a fearful oath.
Six months later, the captain was found dead on the highroad between Gaillon and Mantes. His murderers had stripped him of all his apparel, forgetting, however, in his right boot a jewel which was discovered there afterward, a diamond of the first water and of considerable value.
Some fairly large woods separated it from the highroad which runs from Gaillon to Saint-Cyr-de-Vaudreuil, while the barges usually touched at the hamlet of Roule, where hacks were hired to take passengers and goods to the ferry of Muids, thereby saving them the long détour made by the Seine. Tournebut was thus isolated between these two much-travelled roads.
As he left the cabin, he noticed a sleek, shiftless-looking individual, with spy stamped on every line of his face, standing by the open gangway. He had a sickly-green complexion, and, as if to match its hue, he was clad in a shabby green jerkin, rough green cap, green doublet, and hose of the same colour. It was Michel Gaillon, the first criminal to die on Canadian soil.
He grew thin and pale from the close confinement and the wretched food which was brought to him three times a day by the hands of the villain Gaillon. His heart was bitter within him, and he had almost abandoned hope. But for the knowledge that the voyage must come to an end, and that some change must then take place in his circumstances, he would have given way to despair.
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