best that Madame Lavilette should know nothing about Nic's complicity
just yet. At half past nine o'clock Nic left the house and took the road
towards the Seigneury.




CHAPTER XIII

About half-way between the Seigneury and the main street of the village
there was a huge tree, whose limbs stretched across the road and made a
sort of archway. In the daytime, during the summer, foot travellers,
carts and carriages, with their drivers, loitered in its shade as they
passed, grateful for the rest it gave; but at night, even when it was
moonlight, the wide branches threw a dark and heavy shadow, and the
passage beneath them was gloomy travel. Many a foot traveller hesitated
to pass into that umbrageous circle, and skirted the fence beyond the
branches on the further side of the road instead.

When Nicolas Lavilette, returning from the Seigneury with the precious
bag of gold for Papineau, came hurriedly along the road towards the
village, he half halted, with sudden premonition of danger, a dozen feet
or so from the great tree. But like most young people, who are inclined
to trust nothing but their own strong arms and what their eyes can see,
he withstood the temptation to skirt the fence; and with a little half-
scornful laugh at himself, yet a little timidity also (or he would not
have laughed at all), he hurried under the branches. He had not gone
three steps when the light of a dark lantern flashed suddenly in his
face, and a pistol touched his forehead. All he could see was a figure
clothed entirely in black, even to hands and face, with only holes for