semen. No one had warned her: there
had not been time or opportunity. She was just dishing up the roast meat
for the hungry appetites of Messieurs les Chouans, when behold, the
gendarmes! Who the gentlemen were, she did not know; but imperial
gendarmes were never a welcome sight to Monsieur Joseph's household.

"The place is like a city of the dead," said the Prefect, drawing rein
in front of the salon windows. "See if you can find any one, Simon, and
ask for Monsieur de la Mariniere."

One of the gendarmes dismounted. Wearing the ordinary dress of these
civil soldiers, he yet differed in some indefinable way from his two
companions. He had the keen and wary look of a clever dog; his eyes were
everywhere.

"City of the dead, eh! Plenty of footprints of the living!" he muttered,
as he turned back towards the outbuildings and noticed the trampled
sand.

Marie Gigot saw him coming, and dived back into her kitchen.

"Ah! it is that demon!" she said to herself. "Holy Virgin, defend us! I
thought that wretch was gone. All of them in the dining-room--the stable
full of their horses, and no one there but that ignorant Tobie! We are
done for at last, that's sure. Eh! there's Monsieur Angelot talking to
him. But of course it is hopeless. That must be the Prefect. To be sure
they say he is better than the last--and it may be only a friendly
visit--and why should not my master have his friends to breakfast? But
then, again, what brings that Simon, that Chouan-catcher, as they call
him! Why, Gigot told me of half-a-dozen fellows who had sworn to shoot
him, and not a hundred miles from here."

She ran to the door again and looked out. Angelot, cool and quiet, had
come out of the stable and met the gendarme face to face, returning his
salutation with indifference.

"It is Monsieur le Prefet? Certainly, my uncle is at home," he said. "I
am not sure that he is in the house," and he walked on towards the group
of horsemen.

"Not in the house!" breathed the cook. "They are hiding, then! They must
have heard or seen them coming--ah, how stupid I am! I saw mademoiselle
run past the window."

Angelot came bareheaded, smiling, to represent his uncle in welcoming
the Prefect to Les Chouettes. He would not have been his father's son if
the droll side of the situation had not struck him. He thought it
exquisite, though he was sorry for his uncle's annoyance. The Chouan
guests had irritated him, and that they should lose their breakfas