Here the catalogue ended, and a short conference between the maire and
the gen-d'arme ensued, which ended in our being committed for examination
on the morrow; meanwhile we were to remain at the inn, under the
surveillance of the gen-d'arme.

On reaching the inn my poor friend was so completely exhausted that she
at once retired to her room, and I proceeded to fulfil a promise I had
made her to despatch a note to Mrs. Bingham at Amiens by a special
messenger, acquainting her with all our mishaps, and requesting her to
come or send to our assistance. This done, and a good supper smoking
before me, of which with difficulty I persuaded Isabella to partake in
her own room, I again regained my equanimity, and felt once more at ease.

The gen-d'arme in whose guardianship I had been left was a fine specimen
of his caste; a large and powerfully built man of about fifty, with an
enormous beard of grizzly brown and grey hair, meeting above and beneath
his nether lip; his eyebrows were heavy and beetling, and nearly
concealed his sharp grey eyes, while a deep sabre-wound had left upon his
cheek a long white scar, giving a most warlike and ferocious look to his
features.

As he sat apart from me for some time, silent and motionless, I could not
help imagining in how many a hard-fought day he had borne a part, for he
evidently, from his age and bearing, had been one of the soldiers of the
empire. I invited him to partake of my bottle of Medoc, by which he
seemed flattered. When the flask became low, and was replaced by
another, he appeared to have lost much of his constrained air, and
seemed forgetting rapidly the suspicious circumstances which he supposed
attached to me--waxed wondrous confidential and communicative, and