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Sambuc shrugged his shoulders and laughed contemptuously. What did he care for the Prussians, the dirty cowards! And all at once he exploded in a fit of anger, pounding the table with his fist.

“Tonnerre de Dieu! I don’t mind the uhlans so much; they’re not so bad, but it’s the other one I’d like to get a chance at once–you know whom I mean, the other fellow, the spy, the man who used to work for you.”

“Goliah?” said Father Fouchard.

Silvine, who had resumed her sewing, dropped it in her lap and listened with intense interest.

“That’s his name, Goliah! Ah, the brigand! he is as familiar with every inch of the wood of Dieulet as I am with my pocket, and he’s like enough to get us pinched some fine morning. I heard of him to-day at the Maltese Cross making his boast that he would settle our business for us before we’re a week older. A dirty hound, he is, and he served as guide to the Prussians the day before the battle of Beaumont; I leave it to these fellows if he didn’t.”

“It’s as true as there’s a candle standing on that table!” attested Cabasse.

“Per silentia amica lunoe,” added Ducat, whose quotations were not always conspicuous for their appositeness.

But Sambuc again brought his heavy fist down upon the table. “He has been tried and adjudged guilty, the scoundrel! If ever you hear of his being in the neighborhood just send me word, and his head shall go and keep company with the heads of the two uhlans in the Meuse; yes, by G-d! I pledge you my word it shall.”

There was silence. Silvine was very white, and gazed at the men with unwinking, staring eyes.

“Those are things best not be talked too much about,” old Fouchard prudently declared. “Your health, and good-night to you.”

They emptied the second bottle, and Prosper, who had returned from the stable, lent a hand to load upon the wheelbarrow, whence the dead sheep had been removed, the loaves that Silvine had placed in an old grain-sack. But he turned his back and made no reply when his brother and the other two men, wheeling the barrow before them through the snow, stalked away and were lost to sight in the darkness, repeating:

“Good-night, good-night! an plaisir!”

They had breakfasted the following morning, and Father Fouchard was alone in the kitchen when the door was thrown open and Goliah in the flesh entered the room, big and burly, with the ruddy hue of health on his face and his tranquil smile. If the old man experienced anything in the nature of a shock at the suddenness of the apparition he let no evidence of it escape him. He peered at the other through his half-closed lids while he came forward and shook his former employer warmly by the hand.

“How are you, Father Fouchard?”

Then only the old peasant seemed to recognize him.

“Hallo, my boy, is it you? You’ve been filling out; how fat you are!”

And he eyed him from head to foot as he stood there, clad in a sort of soldier’s greatcoat of coarse blue cloth, with a cap of the same material, wearing a comfortable, prosperous air of self-content. His speech betrayed no foreign accent, moreover; he spoke with the slow, thick utterance of the peasants of the district.

“Yes, Father Fouchard, it’s I in person. I didn’t like to be in the neighborhood without dropping in just to say how-do-you-do to you.”

The old man could not rid himself of a feeling of distrust. What was the fellow after, anyway? Could he have heard of the francs-tireurs’ visit to the farmhouse the night before? That was something he must try to ascertain. First of all, however, it would be best to treat him politely, as he seemed to have come there in a friendly spirit.

“Well, my lad, since you are so pleasant we’ll have a glass together for old times’ sake.”

He went himself and got a bottle and two glasses. Such expenditure of wine went to his heart, but one must know how to be liberal when he has business on hand. The scene of the preceding night was repeated, they touched glasses with the same words, the same gestures.