Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/257

 an ambuscade had made the soldiers come to a halt, but we did not pause from our flight. On getting near an isolated hut, the stranger said to me, "It is now daylight, and we are safe:" and then leaping the pales of the garden, he took a key from the hollow trunk of a tree, and opening the door of the cot we immediately entered.

An iron lamp, placed on the mantel-piece, lighted up a plain and rustic apartment. I only observed in a corner a barrel containing, as I thought, gunpowder, and near it on a shelf was a quantity of gun-cartridges. A woman's attire placed on a chair with one of those large black hats worn by the provençal peasants, indicated the presence of a sleeping female, whose heavy breathing reached our ears. Whilst I threw a rapid glance about me, my guide produced from an old trunk a quarter of a kid, some onions, oil, and a bottle of wine: he invited me to partake of a repast, of which I felt in the greatest need. He seemed very desirous of interrogating me, but I ate with so much appetite that I believe he felt a scruple of conscience in interrupting me. When I had finished, which was not whilst anything remained on the table, he led me to a sort of loft, assuring me that I was in perfect safety, and then left me before I could ask if he was going to stay in the hut; but scarcely had I stretched myself out on the straw when a heavy sleep took possession of all my faculties.

When I awoke I judged by the height of the sun that it was two o'clock. A female peasant, doubtlessly the same whose apparel I had seen, warned by my movements, showed her head at the opening of the door of my garret—"Do not stir," said she in a provincial dialect, "the environs are full of sapins (gendarmes) who are examining every place." I did not know what she meant by 'sapins,' but I guessed that it did not refer to anything very propitious for me.

At twilight I saw my new friend of the previous evening, who, after some trifling conversation, asked me