"I'll answer for them; they are positively official."
("It's a good thing to have friends everywhere," observed Montbar, parenthetically.)
"Especially near M. Fouche," resumed Morgan; "let us hear the news."
"Am I to tell it aloud, or to you privately?"
"I presume we are all interested, so tell it aloud."
"Well, the First Consul sent for citizen Fouche at the Louvre, and lectured him on our account."
"Capital! what next?"
"Citizen Fouche replied that we were clever scamps, very difficult to find, and still more difficult to capture when we had been found, in short, he praised us highly."
"Very amiable of him. What next?"
"Next, the First Consul replied that that did not concern him, that we were brigands, and that it was our brigandage which maintained the war in Vendee, and that the day we ceased sending money to Brittany there would be no more Brittany."
"Excellent reasoning, it seems to me."
"He said the West must be fought in the East and the Midi."
"Like England in India."
"Consequently he gave citizen Fouche full powers, and, even if it cost a million and he had to kill five hundred men, he must have our heads."
"Well, he knows his man when he makes his demand; remains to be seen if we let him have them."
"So citizen Fouche went home furious, and vowed that before eight days passed there should not be a single Companion of Jehu left in France."
"The time is short."
"That same day couriers started for Lyons, Macon, Sons-le-Saulnier, Besancon and Geneva, with orders to the garrison commanders to do personally all they could for our destruction; but above all to obey unquestioningly M. Roland de Montrevel, aide-de-camp to the First Consul, and to put at his disposal as many troops as he thought needful."
"And I can add," said Morgan, "that M. Roland de Montrevel is already in the field. He had a conference with the captain of the gendarmerie, in the prison at Bourg, yesterday."
"Does any one know why?" asked a voice.
"The deuce!" said another, "to engage our cells."
"Do you still mean to protect him?" asked d'Assas.
"More than ever."
"Ah! that's too much!" muttered a voice.
"Why so," retorted Morgan imperiously, "isn't it my right as a Companion?"
"Certainly," said two other voices.
"Then I use it; both as a Companion and as your leader."
"But suppose in the middle of the fray a stray ball should take him?"
said a voice.
"Then, it is not a right I claim, nor an order that I give, but an entreaty I make. My friends, promise me, on your honor, that the life of Roland de Montrevel will be sacred to you."
With unanimous voice, all stretching out their hands, they replied: "We swear on our honor!"
"Now," resumed Morgan, "let us look at our position under its true aspect, without deluding ourselves in any way. Once an intelligent police force starts out to pursue us, and makes actual war against us, it will be impossible for us to resist. We may trick them like a fox, or double like a boar, but our resistance will be merely a matter of time, that's all. At least that is my opinion."
Morgan questioned his companions with his eyes, and their acquiescence was unanimous, though it was with a smile on their lips that they recognized their doom. But that was the way in those strange days. Men went to their death without fear, and they dealt it to others without emotion.
"And now," asked Montbar, "have you anything further to say?"
"Yes," replied Morgan, "I have to add that nothing is easier than to procure horses, or even to escape on foot; we are all hunters and more or less mountaineers. It will take us six hours on horse back to get out of France, or twelve on foot. Once in Switzerland we can snap our fingers at citizen Fouche and his police. That's all I have to say."
"It would be very amusing to laugh at citizen Fouche," said Montbar, "but very dull to leave France."
"For that reason, I shall not put this extreme measure to a vote until after we have talked with Cadoudal's messenger."
"Ah, true," exclaimed two or three voices; "the Breton! where is the Breton?"
"He was asleep when I left," said Montbar.
"And he is still sleeping," said Adler, pointing to a man lying on a heap of straw in a recess of the grotto.
They wakened the Breton, who rose to his knees, rubbing his eyes with one hand and feeling for his carbine with the other.
"You are with friends," said a voice; "don't be afraid."
"Afraid!" said the Breton; "who are you, over there, who thinks I am afraid?"
"Some one who probably does not know what fear is, my dear Branche-d'Or," said Morgan, who recognized in Cadoudal's messenger the same man whom they had received at the Chartreuse the night he himself arrived from Avignon. "I ask pardon on his behalf."
Branche-d'Or looked at the young men before him with an air that left no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: "Which of you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for him from my captain."
Morgan advanced a step and said: "I am."
"Your name?"
"I have two."
"Your fighting name?"
"Morgan."
"Yes, that's the one the general told me; besides, I recognize you.