ures and the look they gave him
terrified Galope-Chopine, who fancied he saw blood in the red woollen
caps they wore.

"Fetch your axe," said Marche-a-Terre.

"But, Monsieur Marche-a-Terre, what do you want it for?"

"Come, cousin, you know very well," said Pille-Miche, pocketing his
snuff-box which Marche-a-Terre returned to him; "you are condemned."

The two Chouans rose together and took their guns.

"Monsieur Marche-a-Terre, I never said one word about the Gars--"

"I told you to fetch your axe," said Marche-a-Terre.

The hapless man knocked against the wooden bedstead of his son, and
several five-franc pieces rolled on the floor. Pille-Miche picked them
up.

"Ho! ho! the Blues paid you in new money," cried Marche-a-Terre.

"As true as that's the image of Saint-Labre," said Galope-Chopine, "I
have told nothing. Barbette mistook the Fougeres men for the gars of
Saint-Georges, and that's the whole of it."

"Why do you tell things to your wife?" said Marche-a-Terre, roughly.

"Besides, cousin, we don't want excuses, we want your axe. You are
condemned."

At a sign from his companion, Pille-Miche helped Marche-a-Terre to seize
the victim. Finding himself in their grasp Galope-Chopine lost all
power and fell on his knees holding up his hands to his slayers in
desperation.

"My friends, my good friends, my cousin," he said, "what will become of
my little boy?"

"I will take charge of him," said Marche-a-Terre.

"My good comrades," cried the victim, turning livid. "I am not fit to
die. Don't make me go without confession. You have the right to take my
life, but you've no right to make me lose a blessed eternity."

"That is true," said Marche-a-Terre, addressing Pille-Miche.

The two Chouans waited a moment in much uncertainty, unable to decide
this case of conscience. Galope-Chopine listened to the rustling of the
wind as though he still had hope. Suddenly Pille-Miche took him by the
arm into a corner of the hut.

"Confess your sins to me," he said, "and I will tell them to a priest
of the true Church, and if there is any penance to do I will do it for
you."

Galope-Chopine obtained some respite by the way in which he confessed
his sins; but in spite of their number and the circumstances of each
crime, he came finally to the end of them.

"Cousin," he said, imploringly, "since I am speaking to you as I would
to my confessor, I do assure you, by the holy name of God, that I
have nothing to reproach