at this moment I were to signify
to him my desire to be rid of any one, he would kill them without
scruple.--Butifer!" he went on, addressing the poacher, "I fully
believed you to be a man of your word; I pledged mine for you because I
had your promise. My promise to the _procureur du roi_ at Grenoble was
based upon your vow never to go poaching again, and to turn over a new
leaf and become a steady, industrious worker. You fired that shot just
now, and here you are, on the Comte de Labranchoir's estate! Eh! you
miscreant? Suppose his keeper had happened to hear you? It is a lucky
thing for you that I shall take no formal cognizance of this offence; if
I did, you would come up as an old offender, and of course you have no
gun license! I let you keep that gun of yours out of tenderness for your
attachment to the weapon."

"It is a beauty," said the commandant, who recognized a duck gun from
Sainte Etienne.

The smuggler raised his head and looked at Genestas by way of
acknowledging the compliment.

"Butifer," continued Benassis, "if your conscience does not reproach
you, it ought to do so. If you are going to begin your old tricks again,
you will find yourself once more in a park enclosed by four stone walls,
and no power on earth will save you from the hulks; you will be a marked
man, and your character will be ruined. Bring your gun to me to-night, I
will take care of it for you."

Butifer gripped the barrel of his weapon in a convulsive clutch.

"You are right, sir," he said; "I have done wrong, I have broken bounds,
I am a cur. My gun ought to go to you, but when you take it away from
me, you take all that I have in the world. The last shot which my
mother's son will fire shall be through my own head.... What would you
have? I did as you wanted me. I kept quiet all winter; but the spring
came, and the sap rose. I am not used to day labor. It is not in my
nature to spend my life in fattening fowls; I cannot stoop about turning
over the soil for vegetables, nor flourish a whip and drive a cart, nor
scrub down a horse in a stable all my life, so I must die of starvation,
I suppose? I am only happy when I am up there," he went on after a
pause, pointing to the mountains. "And I have been about among the hills
for the past week; I got a sight of a chamois, and I have the chamois
there," he said, pointing to the top of the crag; "it is at your
service! Dear M. Benassis, leave me my gun. Listen! I will leave the
Commu