remarked to Gerard: "That fool is not so clever as he means to be! It
is far from easy to read the face of a Chouan, but the fellow betrays
himself by his anxiety to show his nerve. Ha! ha! if he had only
pretended fear I should have taken him for a stupid brute. He and I
might have made a pair! I came very near falling into the trap. Yes,
we shall undoubtedly be attacked; but let 'em come; I'm all ready
now."

As he said these words in a low voice, rubbing his hands with an air
of satisfaction, he looked at the Chouan with a jeering eye. Then he
crossed his arms on his breast and stood in the road with his favorite
officers beside him awaiting the result of his arrangements. Certain
that a fight was at hand, he looked at his men composedly.

"There'll be a row," said Beau-Pied to his comrades in a low voice.
"See, the commandant is rubbing his hands."

In critical situations like that in which the detachment and its
commander were now placed, life is so clearly at stake that men of
nerve make it a point of honor to show coolness and self-possession.
These are the moments in which to judge men's souls. The commandant,
better informed of the danger than his two officers, took pride in
showing his tranquillity. With his eyes moving from Marche-a-Terre to
the road and thence to the woods he stood expecting, not without
dread, a general volley from the Chouans, whom he believed to be
hidden like brigands all around him; but his face remained impassible.
Knowing that the eyes of the soldiers were turned upon him, he
wrinkled his brown cheeks pitted with the small-pox, screwed his upper
lip, and winked his right eye, a grimace always taken for a smile by
his men; then he tapped Gerard on the shoulder and said: "Now that