The thought of the commandant, as he returned to his men, was: "Can I
be mistaken?" He glanced, with a concentrated anger which flashed like
lightning from his eyes, at the stolid, immovable Chouan; a look of
savage irony which he fancied he detected in the man's eyes, warned
him not to relax in his precautions. Just then Captain Merle, having
obeyed Hulot's orders, returned to his side.

"We did well, captain," said the commandant, "to put the few men whose
patriotism we can count upon among those conscripts at the rear. Take
a dozen more of our own bravest fellows, with sub-lieutenant Lebrun at
their head, and make a rear-guard of them; they'll support the
patriots who are there already, and help to shove on that flock of
birds and close up the distance between us. I'll wait for you."

The captain disappeared. The commander's eye singled out four men on
whose intelligence and quickness he knew he might rely, and he
beckoned to them, silently, with the well-known friendly gesture of
moving the right forefinger rapidly and repeatedly toward the nose.
They came to him.

"You served with me under Hoche," he said, "when we brought to reason
those brigands who call themselves 'Chasseurs du Roi'; you know how
they hid themselves to swoop down on the Blues."

At this commendation of their intelligence the four soldiers nodded
with significant grins. Their heroically martial faces wore that look
of careless resignation to fate which evidenced the fact that since
the struggle had begun between France and Europe, the ideas of the
private soldiers had never passed beyond the cartridge-boxes on their
backs or the bayonets in front of them. With their lips drawn together