"Very good," said Barbillon.

"There must be an example," said Skeleton, becoming more animated. "Now it
is no longer the grabs who find us out: it is the spies. Jacques and
Gauthier guillotined the other day. Roussillon, sent to the galleys for
life, sold!"

"And me, and my mother, and Calabash, and my brother at Toulon!" cried
Nicholas, "have we not been sold by Bras-Rouge? That is certain now, since,
instead of putting him here, they have sent him to La Roquette! They did
not dare leave him with us; he knew his treachery, the sneak!"

"And," said Barbillon, "has not Bras-Rouge also sold me?"

"And me," said a young prisoner, in a shrill and reedy voice, lisping in an
affected manner, "I was betrayed by Jobert, a man who proposed an affair in
the Rue Saint Martin."

This last personage, with the reedy voice, a pale, fat, and effeminate
face, and an insidious and cowardly expression, was dressed in a singular
manner. He had on his head a red handkerchief, which allowed two locks of
white hair to be seen plastered on his temples; the ends of the
handkerchief formed a bow over his forehead; he wore, for a cravat, a
shawl, of white merino with green palms in the corners on his bosom; his
jacket, of maroon colored cloth, disappeared under the tight waistband of
his ample trousers, made of gay Scotch plaid.

"If this is not an indignity! Must a man be a scoundrel?" resumed this
gentleman with the pretty voice. "Nothing in the world would have made me