'It is not a question upon which I can offer an opinion,' said I.
'I only know that I owe my life to your intercession.'

I do not know what reply he might have made to this evasion, but at that
moment we heard a couple of pistol shots and a distant shouting from far
away in the darkness. We stopped for a few minutes, but all was silent
once more.

'They must have caught sight of Toussac,' said my companion. 'I am
afraid that he is too strong and too cunning to be taken by them. I do
not know what impression he left upon you, but I can tell you that you
will go far to meet a more dangerous man.'

I answered that I would go far to avoid meeting one, unless I had the
means of defending myself, and my companion's dry chuckle showed that he
appreciated my feelings.

'Yet he is an absolutely honest man, which is no very common thing in
these days,' said he. 'He is one of those who, at the outbreak of the
Revolution, embraced it with the whole strength of his simple nature.
He believed what the writers and the speakers told him, and he was
convinced that, after a little disturbance and a few necessary
executions, France was to become a heaven upon earth, the centre of
peace and comfort and brotherly love. A good many people got those fine
ideas into their heads, but the heads have mostly dropped into the
sawdust-basket by this time. Toussac was true to them, and when instead
of peace he found war, instead of comfort a grinding poverty, and
instead of equality an Empire, it drove him mad. He became the fierce
creature you see, with the one idea of devoting his huge body and