ay no more. He muttered
something about disturbing the game, and passed on. Simon grinned as he
looked after him.

All this time the General was fast asleep, stretched on a sofa in the
salon. Angelot looked in upon him as he lay snoring. With his eyes shut,
he was more like the Emperor than ever; and as with Napoleon, there was
a sort of fascination in the brow, the chin, the shape of the head,
though here there was coarseness instead of refinement, the power of
will without the genius.

"He is a handsome beast, but I hate him!" the young man thought as he
looked through the window. "Now if our excellent Chouans were here, what
would they do? Probably nothing. And what can anybody do? Nothing. Fate
has brought the Empire, as my father says, and he does not agree with
Uncle Joseph that it does much more harm than good. For my part, I would
as soon live in peace--and it does not please me to be ruled by
overbearing soldiers and police spies. However, as long as they leave me
my dog and gun and the freedom of the woods, they may have their
politics to themselves for me.--Here I am, dear uncle."

He turned from the window with a shrug. Monsieur Joseph and the Prefect
had been strolling about the meadow, and the Prefect now expressed a
wish to walk round the woods, and to see the view of Lancilly from the
high ground beyond them.

Angelot went with the two men. They walked right through the wood. The
Prefect stopped and talked within twenty yards of the hovel where the
four conspirators lay hidden. It was a grand opportunity for old
Monsieur d'Ombre's pistol-shot; but not a movement, not a sound broke
the stillness of the wood. There was only the rustling of the leaves,
the squeak of the squirrels as they raced and scampered in the high
branches of the oaks.

The two La Marinieres stood on each side of Monsieur de Mauves: they
were a guard to him, though he did not know it, as his eyes wandered
curiously, searchingly, down the glade in which he chose to linger.

A rough whitewashed corner of the hovel, the mass of its dark roof,
were actually visible beyond an undergrowth of briars.

"What have you there?" said the Prefect, so quietly that his companions
did not even suspect him of a suspicion.

"A shelter--an old hovel where wood is stored for the winter," Monsieur
Joseph answered truthfully; but his cheeks and eyes brightened a little,
as if prepared for something more.

"Ah!" the Prefect only said, looking rath