Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/81

Rh tom of the valley of La Pèlerine. From the plateaux of Maine and of Brittany both it was easy to see the coach lying in the trough between two great waves, like a bit of wreckage after a storm at sea.

Hulot meanwhile had reached the summit of a slope that the Blues were climbing. La Pèlerine was still in sight, a long way off, so he turned to see if the Chouans still remained on the spot. The sunlight shining on the barrels of their muskets marked them out for him as a little group of bright dots. As he scanned the valley for the last time before quitting it for the valley of Ernée, he thought he could discern Coupiau's chariot on the highroad.

"Isn't that the Mayenne coach?" he asked of his two comrades, who turned their attention to the old turgotine and recognized it perfectly well.

"Well, then, how was it that we did not meet it?" asked Hulot, as all three looked at each other in silence.

"Here is one more enigma," he went on; "but I begin to have an inkling of the truth."

Just at that very instant Marche-à-Terre also discovered the turgotine, and pointed it out to his comrades. A general outburst of rejoicing aroused the young lady from her musings. She came forward and saw the coach as it sped up the hillside with luckless haste. The miserable turgotine reached the plateau almost immediately; and the Chouans, who had hidden themselves, once more rushed out upon their prey in greedy haste. The dumb traveler slipped down into the bottom of the coach, and cowered there, trying to look like a package.

"Well," cried Coupiau from the box, "so you have smelled out the patriot there! He has money about him—a bag full of gold;" and as he spoke, he pointed out the small farmer, only to find that the Chouans hailed his remarks with a general roar of laughter and shouts of "Pille-Miche! Pille-Miche! Pille-Miche!" In the midst of the hilarity, which Pille-Miche himself echoed, Coupiau came down from the box in confusion. The famous Cibot, alias Pille-Miche,