Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire. Артур Конан Дойл

a foolish, helpless flapping of his hands, but the other sprang in front of him with so determined a gesture of authority that the younger man staggered back from it as from a blow.

      'You fool!' said his companion. 'You poor miserable dupe!'

      Lesage's mouth opened, and he stood staring with his knees bent and his spread-fingered hands up, the most hideous picture of fear that I have ever seen.

      'You, Charles, you!' he stammered, hawking up each word.

      'Yes, me,' said the other, smiling grimly.

      'A police agent all the time! You who were the very soul of our

      society! You who were in our inmost council! You who led us on!

      Oh, Charles, you have not the heart! I think I hear them coming,

      Charles. Let me pass; I beg and implore you to let me pass.'

      The granite face shook slowly from side to side.

      'But why me? Why not Toussac?'

      'If the dog had crippled Toussac, why then I might have had you both.

      But friend Toussac is rather vigorous for a thin little fellow like me.

      No, no, my good Lucien, you are destined to be the trophy of my bow and my spear, and you must reconcile yourself to the fact.'

      Lesage slapped his forehead as if to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

      'A police agent!' he repeated, 'Charles a police agent!'

      'I thought it would surprise you.'

      'But you were the most republican of us all. We were none of us advanced enough for you. How often have we gathered round you, Charles, to listen to your philosophy! And there is Sibylle, too! Don't tell me that Sibylle was a police spy also. But you are joking, Charles. Say that you are joking!'

      The man relaxed his grim features, and his eyes puckered with amusement.

      'Your astonishment is very flattering,' said he. 'I confess that I thought that I played my part rather cleverly. It is not my fault that these bunglers unleashed their hound, but at least I shall have the credit of having made a single-handed capture of one very desperate and dangerous conspirator.' He smiled drily at this description of his prisoner. 'The Emperor knows how to reward his friends,' he added, 'and also how to punish his enemies.'

      All this time he had held his hand in his bosom, and now he drew it out so far as to show the brass gleam of a pistol butt.

      'It is no use,' said he, in answer to some look in the other's eye.

      'You stay in the hut, alive or dead.'

      Lesage put his hands to his face and began to cry with loud, helpless sobbings.

      'Why, you have been worse than any of us, Charles,' he moaned. 'It was you who told Toussac to kill the man from Bow Street, and it was you also who set fire to the house in the Rue Basse de la Rampart. And now you turn on us!'

      'I did that because I wished to be the one to throw light upon it all – and at the proper moment.'

      'That is very fine, Charles, but what will be thought about that when I make it all public in my own defence? How can you explain all that to your Emperor? There is still time to prevent my telling all that I know about you.'

      'Well, really, I think that you are right, my friend,' said the other, drawing out his pistol and cocking it. 'Perhaps I did go a little beyond my instructions in one or two points, and, as you very properly remark, there is still time to set it right. It is a matter of detail whether I give you up living or give you up dead, and I think that, on the whole, it had better be dead.'

      It had been horrible to see Toussac tear the throat out of the hound, but it had not made my flesh creep as it crept now. Pity was mingled with my disgust for this unfortunate young man, who had been fitted by Nature for the life of a retired student or of a dreaming poet, but who had been dragged by stronger wills than his own into a part which no child could be more incapable of playing. I forgave him the trick by which he had caught me and the selfish fears to which he had been willing to sacrifice me. He had flung himself down upon the ground, and floundered about in a convulsion of terror, whilst his terrible little companion, with his cynical smile, stood over him with his pistol in his hand. He played with the helpless panting coward as a cat might with a mouse; but I read in his inexorable eyes that it was no jest, and his finger seemed to be already tightening upon his trigger. Full of horror at so cold-blooded a murder, I pushed open my crazy cupboard, and had rushed out to plead for the victim, when there came a buzz of voices and a clanking of steel from without. With a stentorian shout of 'In the name of the Emperor!' a single violent wrench tore the door of the hut from its hinges.