we are much older. Now to prove that you've
simply to tell me to whom you sold the horse; we shall send for the
purchaser, and if he confirms your statement, I will sign your
discharge. To whom did you sell the horse?

ETCHEPARE. I didn't sell it.

MOUZON. You gave it away? You did something with it!

ETCHEPARE. No--I didn't find it again.

MOUZON. You didn't find it again! The devil! That's not so good. Come!
Let's think of something else. You didn't go up the mountain all alone?

ETCHEPARE. Yes, all alone.

MOUZON. Bad luck! Another time, you see, you ought to take a companion.
Were you out long?

ETCHEPARE. All night. I got in at five in the morning.

MOUZON. A long time.

ETCHEPARE. We aren't well off, and a horse is worth a lot of money.

MOUZON. Yes. But you didn't spend the whole night on the mountain
without meeting someone--shepherds or customs officers?

ETCHEPARE. It was raining in torrents.

MOUZON. Then you met no one?

ETCHEPARE. No one.

MOUZON. I thought as much. [_In a tone of disappointed reproach, with
apparent pity_] Tell me, Etchepare, do you take the jurymen for idiots?
[_Silence_] So that's all you've been able to think of? I said you were
intelligent just now. I take that back. But think what you've told me--a
rigmarole like that. Why, a child of eight would have done better. It's
ridiculous I tell you--ridiculous. The jurymen will simply shrug their
shoulders when they hear it. A whole night out of doors, in the pouring
rain, to look for a horse you don't find--and without meeting a living
soul--no shepherds, no customs officers--and you go home at five in the
morning--although at this time of the year it's daylight by then--yes,
and before then--but no, no one saw you and you saw no one. So everybody
was stricken with blindness, eh? A miracle happened, and everyone was
blind that night. You don't ask me to believe that? No? Why not? It's
quite as probable as what you do tell me. So everybody wasn't blind?
[_The recorder bursts into a laugh; the gendarmes imitate him_] You see
what it's worth, your scheme of defence! You make the gaolers and my
recorder laugh. Don't you agree with me that your new method of defence
is ridiculous?

ETCHEPARE [_abashed, under his breath_] I don't know.

MOUZON. Well, if you don't know, we do! Come now! I have no advice to
give you. You repeat that at the trial and see what effect you produce.
But why not confess? Why not confess? I really don'