My Library

call your men into the room and give them orders to shoot me if I attempt to pass them!” “Just as you please, monsieur! Pierre, call the guard.” In obedience to this summons, the corps de garde filed into the room, twenty-seven strong, and as soon as the last man entered, the officer addressed them, saying, as he pointed to Ravalette, “This gentleman thinks to escape. See to it that he does not pass you alive. The very instant that he appears unattended by myself, fire upon him. I so command you: see that my orders are executed. Does that suit you, Monsieur Ravalette?” “Perfectly—perfectly! nothing could be better,” said the latter. “You will place fourteen men around the house to watch the windows, and the other thirteen you will distribute on the stairs and landing,” said the commissary. “It shall be done,” said the sergeant, as he marched his men from the chamber—but not till I had placed a double-barrelled Deringer and a Colt’s revolver, both freshly capped and loaded, in his hands—for I hated Ravalette; man or demon, I hated him religiously—that being the strongest kind of dislike—and I had an intense desire to ascertain whether he was bullet-proof or not.