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From the faces of the others, I knew that they, too, were willing to tell anything, true or false, to avoid torture, and so I could not but believe their story. Therefore, said I to myself, Montignac's plan not adhered to. De Berquin sent no one to the governor with information concerning my hiding-place. La Chatre had come to Clochonne without having awaited such information.
I think Montignac's desire to have the lady take you was due to his having suggested the plan. He wanted both the credit of having devised your capture and the pleasure of mademoiselle's society. Yes, when you held out to me the possibility, I was willing to risk Montignac's resentment and take La Tournoire myself. Before that, I had confined myself to the task of following mademoiselle.
Montignac's reckless-looking companion had been the gay gentleman going north, at whom I had looked from an inn shed. The other was the man who had afterwards chased me southward at the behest of the Duke of Guise. But he no longer wore on his hat the white cross of Lorraine, and the Vicomte de Berquin's apparel was no longer gay and spotless. The two had doubtless fallen on hard ways.
Again my weapons clashed with Montignac's. Julie looked swiftly around. Her eye alighted on the dagger that lay on one of the chairs. She drew it from its sheath. "If we die, it is together!" she cried, holding it aloft. There came a deadened, thumping sound, growing swiftly to great volume. It was that of men rushing up the stairs. "To the rescue!" cried La Chatre.
I cried, catching Montignac's blade again with my dagger, and giving a thrust which he avoided by leaping backward. "Good, Montignac!" cried La Chatre, looking on from the window. "He cannot reach you! If you cannot kill him, you may keep him engaged till the troops come back!" "I shall kill him!" was Montignac's reply, while he faced me with set teeth and relentless eyes.
He struck the bowl with his stick, and it gave forth a loud, metallic ring, like that previously produced by Montignac's dagger from the tray on the other table. "The voice is not always to be relied on," continued the governor. "Sometimes it fails when most needed. But a sound like this," and he struck the bowl again, "can be made instantly and with certainty.
Peering between the curtains, I saw that La Chatre was lame, and that he walked with the aid of a stick on one side and Montignac's shoulder on the other. "To think," he was saying as he came in, "that the misstep of a horse should have made a helpless cripple of me, when I might have led this hunt myself!"
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