"But the other sentinel passed me. Would you get him into trouble?"

The Kanaka frowned, hesitated, then said: "That is another matter. Well,
pass."

Twice more the same formula and arguments were used. At last he heard a
voice in challenge that he knew. It was that of Maillot. This was a
more difficult game. His order was taken with a malicious sneer by the
sentinel. At that instant Laflamme threw his arms swiftly round the
other, clapped a hand on his mouth, and, with a dexterous twist of leg,
threw him backward, till it seemed as if the spine of the soldier must
break. It was impossible to struggle against this trick of wrestling,
which Laflamme had learned from a famous Cornish wrestler, in a summer
spent on the English coast.

"If you shout or speak I will kill you!" he said to Maillot, and then
dropped him heavily on the ground, where he lay senseless. Laflamme
stooped down and felt his heart. "Alive!" he said, then seized the
rifle and plunged into the woods. The moon at that moment broke through
the clouds, and he saw the Semaphore like a ghost pointing towards Pascal
River. He waved his hand towards his old prison, and sped away.

But others were thinking of the Semaphore at this moment, others saw it
indistinct, yet melancholy, in the moonlight. The Governor and his wife
saw it, and Madame Solde said: "Alfred, I shall be glad when I shall see
that no more."

"You have too much feeling."

"I suppose Marie makes me think more of it to-day. She wept this morning