hunting-knife. When you know that you can break the strongest man's
legs by the trick I showed you--when you can hold your own against three
armed warders, feeling quite sure that you can account for two of them
before they have got out flint and steel, what is there to be afraid of?
Have not you your cane?"

"To be sure," said the man.

Paccard, nicknamed The Old Guard, Old Wide-Awake, or The Right Man--a
man with legs of iron, arms of steel, Italian whiskers, hair like an
artist's, a beard like a sapper's, and a face as colorless and immovable
as Contenson's, kept his spirit to himself, and rejoiced in a sort of
drum-major appearance which disarmed suspicion. A fugitive from Poissy
or Melun has no such serious self-consciousness and belief in his own
merit. As Giafar to the Haroun el Rasheed of the hulks, he served him
with the friendly admiration which Peyrade felt for Corentin.

This huge fellow, with a small body in proportion to his legs,
flat-chested, and lean of limb, stalked solemnly about on his two long
pins. Whenever his right leg moved, his right eye took in everything
around him with the placid swiftness peculiar to thieves and spies.
The left eye followed the right eye's example. Wiry, nimble, ready for
anything at any time, but for a weakness of Dutch courage Paccard would
have been perfect, Jacques Collin used to say, so completely was he
endowed with the talents indispensable to a man at war with society; but
the master had succeeded in persuading his slave to drink only in the
evening. On going home at night, Paccard tippled the liquid gold poured
into small glasses out of a pot-bellied stone jar from Danzig.

"We will make them open their eyes," said Paccard, putting on his grand
hat and feathers after bowing to Carlos, whom he called his Confessor.

These were the events which had led three men, so clever, each in his
way, as Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and Corentin, to a hand-to-hand fight
on the same ground, each exerting his talents in a struggle for his
own passions or interests. It was one of those obscure but terrible
conflicts on which are expended in marches and countermarches, in
strategy, skill, hatred, and vexation, the powers that might make a fine
fortune. Men and means were kept absolutely secret by Peyarde, seconded
in this business by his friend Corentin--a business they thought but
a trifle. And so, as to them, history is silent, as it is on the true
causes of many revolutions.