“Here they are!” suddenly shouted the victorious miser. “Here they are, my louis, my dear treasure; and in the Sunday vest of that little hypocrite of Limousin! Look, landlord, they are just as I told you. Here is the Napoleon, the man with a queue, and the Philippe that I have bitten. See the dents! Ah, the little beggar with the sanctified air. I should have much sooner suspected the other. Ah, the wretch! Well, he must go to the convict prison.”
At this moment Jean Frangois heard the well-known step of Savi¬nien coming slowly up the stairs.
He is going to his destruction, thought he. Three stories. I have time!
And, pushing open the door, the entered the room, pale as death, where he saw the landlord and the servant stupefied in a corner, while the Auvergnat, on his knees, in the disordered heap of clothes, was kissing the pieces of gold.
“Enough of this,” he said, in a thick voice; “I took the money, and put it in my comrade`s trunk. But that is too bad. I am a thief, but not a Judas. Call the police; I will not try to escape, only I must say a word to Savinien in private. Here he is.”
In fact, the little Limousin had just arrived, and seeing his crime discovered, believing himself lost, he stood there, his eyes fixed, his arms hanging.
Jean Francois seized him forcibly by the neck, as if to embrace him; he put his mouth close to Savinien`s ear, and said to him in a low, supplicating voice:
“Keep quiet.”
Then turning towards the others:
“Leave me alone with him. I tell you I won`t go away. Lock us in if you wish, but leave us alone.”
With a commanding gesture he showed them the door.
They went out.
Savinien, broken by grief, was sitting on the bed, and lowered his eyes without understanding anything.
“Listen,” said Jean Francois, who came and took him by the hands. “I understand! You have stolen three gold-pieces to buy some trifle for a girl. That costs six months in prison. But one only comes out from there to go back again, and you will become a pillar of police courts and tribunals. I understand it. I have been seven years at the Reform School, a year at Sainte Pelagie, three years at Poissy, five years at Toulon. Now, don`t be afraid. Everything is arranged. I have taken it on my shoulders.”
“It is dreadful,” said Savinien; but hope was springing up again in his cowardly heart.
“When the elder brother is under the flag, the younger one does not go,” replied Jean Francois. “I am your substitute, that`s all. You care for me a little, do you not? I am paid. Don`t be childish—don`t refuse. They would have taken me again one of these days, for I am a runaway from exile. And then, do you see, that life will be less hard for me than for you.
Honest and pure
I know it all, and I shall not complain if I have not done you this service for nothing, and if you swear to me that you will never do it again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friendship has made me happy. It is through it that, since I have known you, I have been honest and pure, as I might always have been, perhaps, if I had had, like you, a father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me my prayers.
It was my sole regret that I was useless to you, and that I deceived you concerning myself. To-day I have unmasked in saving you. It is all right. Do not cry, and embrace me, for already I hear heavy boots on the stairs. They are coming with the posse, and we must not seem to know each other so well before those chaps.”
He pressed Savinien quickly to his breast, then pushed him from him, when the door was thrown wide open.
It was the landlord and the Auvergnat, who brought the police. Jean Francois sprang forward to the landing-place, held out his hands for the handcuffs, and said, laughing, “Forward, bad lot!”
To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life as an incorrigible.
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