"Who is this man?" inquired Coconnas, endeavoring to recollect, for it seemed to him he had seen that face during one of the crises of his fever.

"Your preserver, my dear friend," replied La Mole; "he who brought to you at the Louvre that refreshing drink which did you so much good."

"Oho!" said Coconnas; "in that case, my friend"--

And he held out his hand to him.

But the man, instead of returning the gesture, drew himself up and withdrew from the two friends just the distance occupied by the curve of his body.

"Sir!" he said to Coconnas, "thanks for the honor you wish to confer on me, but it is probable that if you knew me you would not do so."

"Faith!" said Coconnas, "I declare that, even if you were the devil himself, I am very greatly obliged to you, for if it had not been for you I should be dead at this time."

"I am not exactly the devil," replied the man in the red cap; "but yet persons are frequently found who would rather see the devil than me."

"Who are you, pray?" asked Coconnas.

"Sir," replied the man, "I am Maitre Caboche, the executioner of the provostry of Paris"--

"Ah"--said Coconnas, withdrawing his hand.

"You see!" said Maitre Caboche.

"No, no; I will touch your hand, or may the devil fetch me! Hold it out"--

"Really?"

"Wide as you can."

"Here it is."

"Open it--wider--wider!"

And Coconnas took from his pocket the handful of gold he had prepared for his anonymous physician and placed it in the executioner's hand.

"I would rather have had your hand entirely and solely," said Maitre Caboche, shaking his head, "for I do not lack money, but I am in need of hands to touch mine. Never mind. G.o.d bless you, my dear gentleman."

"So then, my friend," said Coconnas, looking at the executioner with curiosity, "it is you who put men to the rack, who break them on the wheel, quarter them, cut off heads, and break bones. Aha! I am very glad to have made your acquaintance."

"Sir," said Maitre Caboche, "I do not do all myself; just as you n.o.ble gentlemen have your lackeys to do what you do not choose to do yourself, so have I my a.s.sistants, who do the coa.r.s.er work and despatch clownish fellows. Only when, by chance, I have to do with folks of quality, like you and your companion, for instance, ah! then it is another thing, and I take a pride in doing everything myself, from first to last,--that is to say, from the first putting of the _question_, to the decapitation."

In spite of himself, Coconnas felt a shudder pervade his veins, as if the brutal wedge was pressing his leg--as if the edge of the axe was against his neck.

La Mole, without being able to account for it, felt the same sensation.

But Coconnas overcame the emotion, of which he was ashamed, and desirous of taking leave of Maitre Caboche with a jest on his lips, said to him:

"Well, master, I hold you to your word, and when it is my turn to mount Enguerrand de Marigny's gallows or Monsieur de Nemours's scaffold you alone shall lay hands on me."

"I promise you."

"Then, this time here is my hand, as a pledge that I accept your promise," said Coconnas.

And he offered the executioner his hand, which the latter touched timidly with his own, although it was evident that he had a great desire to grasp it warmly.

At this light touch Coconnas turned rather pale; but the same smile lingered on his lips, while La Mole, ill at ease, and seeing the crowd turn as the lantern did and come toward them, touched his cloak.

Coconnas, who in reality had as great a desire as La Mole to put an end to this scene, which by the natural bent of his character he had delayed longer than he would have wished, nodded to the executioner and went his way.

"Faith!" said La Mole, when he and his companion had reached the Croix du Trahoir, "I must confess we breathe more freely here than in the Place des Halles."

"Decidedly," replied Coconnas; "but I am none the less glad at having made Maitre Caboche's acquaintance. It is well to have friends everywhere."

"Even at the sign of the _Belle etoile_," said La Mole, laughing.

"Oh! as for poor Maitre La Huriere," said Coconnas, "he is dead and dead again. I saw the arquebuse spitting flame, I heard the thump of the bullet, which sounded as if it had struck against the great bell of Notre-Dame, and I left him stretched out in the gutter with streams of blood flowing from his nose and mouth. Taking it for granted that he is a friend, he is a friend we shall have in the next world."

Thus chatting, the two young men entered the Rue de l'Arbre Sec and proceeded toward the sign of the _Belle etoile_, which was still creaking in the same place, still presenting to the traveller its astronomic hearth and its appetizing inscription. Coconnas and La Mole expected to find the house in a desperate state, the widow in mourning, and the little ones wearing crepe on their arms; but to their great astonishment they found the house in full swing of activity, Madame La Huriere mightily resplendent, and the children gayer than ever.

"Oh, the faithless creature!" cried La Mole; "she must have married again."

Then addressing the new Artemise:

"Madame," said he, "we are two gentlemen, acquaintances of poor Monsieur La Huriere. We left here two horses and two portmanteaus which we have come to claim."

"Gentlemen," replied the mistress of the house, after she had tried to bring them to her recollection, "as I have not the honor of knowing you, with your permission I will go and call my husband. Gregoire, ask your master to come."

Gregoire stepped from the first kitchen, which was the general pandemonium, into the second, which was the laboratory where Maitre La Huriere in his life-time had been in the habit of concocting the dishes which he felt deserved to be prepared by his clever hands.

"The devil take me," muttered Coconnas, "if it does not make me feel badly to see this house so gay when it ought to be so melancholy. Poor La Huriere!"

"He tried to kill me," said La Mole, "but I pardon him with all my heart."

La Mole had hardly uttered these words when a man appeared holding in his hand a stew-pan, in the bottom of which he was browning some onions, stirring them with a wooden spoon.

La Mole and Coconnas gave vent to a cry of amazement.

As they did so the man lifted his head and, replying by a similar cry, dropped his stew-pan, retaining in his hand only his wooden spoon.

_In nomine Patris_," said the man, waving his spoon as he would have done with a holy-water sprinkler, "_et Filii, et Spiritus sancti_"--

"Maitre La Huriere!" exclaimed the two young men.

"Messieurs de Coconnas and de la Mole!" cried La Huriere.

"So you are not dead?" asked Coconnas.

"Why! can it be that you are alive?" asked the landlord.