Sunk in thought, the spy paced the Promenade slowly, enduring the
martyrdom to which three passions, terrible in their clashing, subject
a man,--love, avarice, and ambition. Eight o'clock struck from all the
towers in the town. The moon rose late. Fog and darkness wrapped in
impenetrable gloom the places where the drama planned by this man was
coming to its climax. He was able to silence the struggle of his
passions as he walked up and down, his arms crossed, and his eyes
fixed on the windows which rose like the luminous eyes of a phantom
above the rampart. The deep silence was broken only by the rippling of
the Nancon, by the regular and lugubrious tolling from the belfries,
by the heavy steps of the sentinels or the rattle of arms as the guard
was hourly relieved.
"The night's as thick as a wolf's jaw," said the voice of Pille-Miche.
"Go on," growled Marche-a-Terre, "and don't talk more than a dead
dog."
"I'm hardly breathing," said the Chouan.
"If the man who made that stone roll down wants his heart to serve as
the scabbard for my knife he'll do it again," said Marche-a-Terre, in
a low voice scarcely heard above the flowing of the river.
"It was I," said Pille-Miche.
"Well, then, old money-bag, down on your stomach," said the other,
"and wriggle like a snake through a hedge, or we shall leave our
carcasses behind us sooner than we need.
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