'But you were the most republican of us all. We were none of us
advanced enough for you. How often have we gathered round you, Charles,
to listen to your philosophy! And there is Sibylle, too! Don't tell me
that Sibylle was a police spy also. But you are joking, Charles.
Say that you are joking!'

The man relaxed his grim features, and his eyes puckered with amusement.

'Your astonishment is very flattering,' said he. 'I confess that I
thought that I played my part rather cleverly. It is not my fault that
these bunglers unleashed their hound, but at least I shall have the
credit of having made a single-handed capture of one very desperate and
dangerous conspirator.' He smiled drily at this description of his
prisoner. 'The Emperor knows how to reward his friends,' he added,
'and also how to punish his enemies.'

All this time he had held his hand in his bosom, and now he drew it out
so far as to show the brass gleam of a pistol butt.

'It is no use,' said he, in answer to some look in the other's eye.
'You stay in the hut, alive or dead.'

Lesage put his hands to his face and began to cry with loud, helpless
sobbings.

'Why, you have been worse than any of us, Charles,' he moaned. 'It was
you who told Toussac to kill the man from Bow Street, and it was you
also who set fire to the house in the Rue Basse de la Rampart. And now
you turn on us!'