Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/204

 robberies in the same district. But the proprietors of the first of the houses attacked having divested themselves of their gags and bonds, gave the alarm. The tocsin was sounded for two leagues round, and the Chauffeurs only owed their safety to the fleetness of their horses. The two brothers Sallambier were hotly followed, and it was only on approaching Bruges that they distanced their pursuers. In a large village where they were, they hired a chaise and two horses, to go, as they said, some leagues and return in the evening.

"A coachman drove them, whom, on getting to the water's edge, the elder Sallambier struck from behind with his knife, and knocked him from his seat. The two brothers then threw him into the sea, hoping that the waves would retain the corpse. Masters of the conveyance, they went on their journey, when, towards the close of day, they met a countryman who bade them good evening. As they did not answer, the man approached, saying, 'Ah! Vandeck, do you not know me? It is I—Joseph.' Sallambier then told him that he had hired the carriage for three days without a conductor. The tone of this answer, the condition of the horses, covered with sweat, and which their master would never have let without a driver, all made the interrogator suspicious. Without prolonging the conversation, he ran to the adjacent village and gave the alarm; seven or eight men on horseback pursued the carriage, which they soon perceived travelling slowly along. They increased their speed and overtook it. It was empty. Rather disappointed, they drove it into an auberge where they intended to pass the night; but scarcely were they seated, when a great noise was heard, occasioned by a crowd conveying before the magistrate two travellers accused of the murder of a man whom some fishermen had found with his throat cut on the sea shore. All ran out, and Joseph recognized the individuals whom he had seen in the carriage, and which they quitted because