Believing him to have
retired for the night, the men were back again in the more congenial
atmosphere of the hostelry, drinking themselves no doubt into a stupor
with that last can of drugged wine. He sat down to quietly mature his
plans, and to think out every detail of what he was about to do. At the
end of a half-hour, silence reigning throughout the house, he rose.
He crept softly into Charlot's chamber and possessed himself of the
Captain's outer garments. These he carried back to the sitting-room, and
extracted from the coat pocket two huge keys tied together with a piece
of string. He never doubted that they were the keys he sought, one
opening the stable door and the other the gates of the porte-cochere.

He replaced the garments, and then to make doubly sure, he waited
yet--in a fever of impatience--another half-hour by his watch.

It wanted a few minutes to midnight when, taking up his cloak and a
lantern he had lighted, he went below once more. In the common-room he
found precisely the scene he had expected. Both Charlot's men and
his own followers lay about the floor in all conceivable manner of
attitudes, their senses locked deep in the drunken stupor that possessed
them. Two or three had remained seated, and had fallen across the table,
when overcome. Of these was Mother Capoulade, whose head lay sideways
on her curled arms, and from whose throat there issued a resonant
and melodious snore. Most of the faces that La Boulaye could see were
horribly livid and bedewed with sweat, and again it came into his mind
to wonder whether he had overdone things, and they would wake no more.
On the other hand, an even greater fear beset him, that the drug might
have been insufficient. By way of testing it, he caught one fellow who
lay across his path a violent kick in the side. The man grunted in his
sleep, and stirred slightly, to relapse almost at once into his helpless
attitude, and to resume his regular breathing, which the blow had
interrupted.

La Boulaye smiled his satisfaction, and without further hesitancy passed
out into the yard. He had yet a good deal to say to Mademoiselle, but he
could not bring himself to speak to her before her mother, particularly
as he realised how much the Marquise might be opposed to him. He opened
the carriage door.

"Mademoiselle," he called softly, "will you do me the favour to alight
for an instant? I must speak to you."

"Can you not say what you have to say where you are?"