er face our bow grated on the shore at
the very point where I had intended that we should land. I sprang out
and turned to assist Mademoiselle.

But, disdaining my proffered hand, she stepped ashore unaided. The
Chevalier came next, and after him Montresor and Mathurin.

Awhile we waited until the troopers brought their boat to land, then
when they had got the snorting animals safely ashore, I bade them look
to the prisoner, and requested Montresor and Mathurin to step aside with
me, as I had something to communicate to them.

Walking between the pair, I drew them some twenty paces away from the
group by the water, towards a certain thicket in which I had bidden
Michelot await me.

"It has occurred to me, Messieurs," I began, speaking slowly and
deliberately as we paced along,--"it has occurred to me that despite all
the precautions taken to carry out my Lord Cardinal's wishes--a work
at least in which you, yourselves, have evinced a degree of zeal that I
cannot too highly commend to his Eminence--the possibility yet remains
of some mistake of trivial appearance, of some slight flaw that might
yet cause the miscarriage of those wishes."

They turned towards me, and although I could not make out the
expressions of their faces, in the gloom, yet I doubted not but that
they were puzzled ones at that lengthy and apparently meaningless
harangue.

The sergeant was the first to speak, albeit I am certain that he
understood the less.

"I venture, M. le Capitaine, to think that your fears, though very
natural, are groundless."

"Say you so?" quoth I, with a backward glance to assure myself that we
were screened by the trees from the eyes of those behind us. "Say you
so? Well, well, mayhap you are right, though you speak of my fears being
groundless. I alluded to some possible mistake of yours--yours and M. de
Montresor's--not of mine. And, by Heaven, a monstrous flaw there is in
this business, for if either of you so much as whisper I'll blow your
brains out!"

And to emphasise these words, as sinister as they were unlooked-for, I
raised both hands suddenly from beneath my cloak, and clapped the cold
nose of a pistol to the head of each of them.

I was obeyed as men are obeyed who thus uncompromisingly prove the
force of their commands. Seeing them resigned, I whistled softly, and
in answer there was a rustle from among the neighbouring trees, and
presently two shadows emerged from the thicket. In less time than it