you have told me is there at the end of the park a
tree where one could hide?"

"Yes, colonel."

"With the exception of the buccaneer, the filibuster or the cannibal no
one enters the private habitation of Blue Beard?"

"No one colonel except the mulattresses who wait upon her."

"And except also the man whom I seek, be it remembered; I have my
reasons for believing we shall find him there."

"Well, colonel?"

"Then nothing is simpler; we will hide ourselves in the thickest tree
until our man comes to our side."

"That cannot fail to occur colonel because the park is not large and
when one walks in it he is forced to pass near a marble basin not very
far from the place where we shall be hidden."

"If our man does not take a walk after night comes, we will wait until
he has gone to bed, and we will surprise him there."

"This will be easy, colonel, unless he calls one of Blue Beard's
comforters to his succor."

"Be easy about that; for with your assistance I can place my hand on him
and then though he were surrounded by a hundred men armed to the teeth
he is mine; I have a sure means of obliging him to obey me; this
concerns me. All that I require of you is to conduct me into the ambush
from which I can spring upon him suddenly."

"This shall be done, colonel."

"Then let us be going," said Rutler, rising from the ground.

"At your orders, colonel; but instead of walking, we must creep. But let
us see," continued John, bending down, "if we can perceive the daylight.
Yes, it is there--but how distant it seems. Speaking of that, colonel,
if, since I came by this road, it should have been stopped up by a
landslide, we should cut, in such a case, a sorry figure! condemned to
remain here, and to die of hunger or to eat each other! Impossible to
get out by the gulf, seeing that one cannot remount a sheet of water as
a trout ascends a cascade."

"That is true," said Rutler, "you appal me; happily, there is no
likelihood of this. You have the sack?"

"Yes, colonel; the straps are strong and the skin impervious. We shall
find our knives, our pistols and our cartridges in it as dry as though
they came from an armory."

"Then, John, let us be starting; go ahead," said the colonel. "We must
have time to dry our clothes."

"That will not take long, colonel; once at the foot of the precipice we
shall be as in an oven; the sun shines full upon it."

John lay down on his face and commenced to glide into the passag