Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/217

Rh ! Seriously, Binet, the best thing you can do for me is to get help, so hurry off as fast as you can, and when you have done my errand, join me at the town."

"Old Courtignon and Nicole shall be brought back," he cried, "if I have to drag them here by the hair of their heads; but just tell me one thing. Master,—what are we going to do with them when they get here?"

"You will see," said I with an air of profound mystery, though I knew myself no more than the babe unborn what was to be the outcome. The sun had set in a bank of red clouds, and the lovely summer evening was closing in when I got to the town about eight o'clock; but fine as it was, there was not a soul about; no guards and no loungers outside the market gate; so I walked boldly up the High Street, where the only living thing I met was a half-starved cat, which fled when it saw me. The houses, all tightly closed, turned blind eyes on the street, with doors and windows barred; and the only sound I heard was the echo of my own footsteps.

"I am too late," I said to myself, "they are all dead." Just then I thought I heard a rustling behind the shutters, so I banged on the nearest door and shouted, "Let me in!" Getting no answer I