dant, who was studying him,
took note of this apparent insensibility, and remarked to Gerard: "That
fool is not so clever as he means to be! It is far from easy to read the
face of a Chouan, but the fellow betrays himself by his anxiety to show
his nerve. Ha! ha! if he had only pretended fear I should have taken him
for a stupid brute. He and I might have made a pair! I came very near
falling into the trap. Yes, we shall undoubtedly be attacked; but let
'em come; I'm all ready now."

As he said these words in a low voice, rubbing his hands with an air
of satisfaction, he looked at the Chouan with a jeering eye. Then he
crossed his arms on his breast and stood in the road with his favorite
officers beside him awaiting the result of his arrangements. Certain
that a fight was at hand, he looked at his men composedly.

"There'll be a row," said Beau-Pied to his comrades in a low voice.
"See, the commandant is rubbing his hands."

In critical situations like that in which the detachment and its
commander were now placed, life is so clearly at stake that men of nerve
make it a point of honor to show coolness and self-possession. These
are the moments in which to judge men's souls. The commandant, better
informed of the danger than his two officers, took pride in showing his
tranquillity. With his eyes moving from Marche-a-Terre to the road and
thence to the woods he stood expecting, not without dread, a general
volley from the Chouans, whom he believed to be hidden like brigands all
around him; but his face remained impassible. Knowing that the eyes of
the soldiers were turned upon him, he wrinkled his brown cheeks pitted
with the small-pox, screwed his upper lip, and winked his right eye, a
grimace always taken for a smile by his men; then he tapped Gerard
on the shoulder and said: "Now that things are quiet tell me what you
wanted to say just now."

"I wanted to ask what this new crisis means, commandant?" was the reply.

"It is not new," said Hulot. "All Europe is against us, and this time
she has got the whip hand. While those Directors are fighting together
like horses in a stable without any oats, and letting the government go
to bits, the armies are left without supplies or reinforcements. We are
getting the worst of it in Italy; we've evacuated Mantua after a series
of disasters on the Trebia, and Joubert has just lost a battle at
Novi. I only hope Massena may be able to hold the Swiss passes against
Suwarow. We'