Belle-Rose — page 327: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

316 A SPY. drawn up around him again. It was like an apparition; but the spy, who had seen all, trembled in his corner. ‘*I¢ is he!’ he murmured. | The door was closed, and he rushed into the street. In three bounds he had reached the corner of the Rue du Vieux-Colombier, and looked around him; the street was black and silent. No other noise was to be heard there ex- cept the moaning of the wind as it whistled between the chimneys. The spy drew a whistle from his pocket and blew softly a first time, then a little stronger a second, then finally very strong a third, putting a minute or two’s interval between each whistle. No one answered this ap- | peal. The spy stamped his foot. ‘‘The scoundrel,’’ said he, ‘‘must have gone and got drunk in some cabaret! Unless he has gone to sleep in some corner,’’ he added. The spy searched in every direction; he did not find any one. He returned to the corner of the Rue du Pot- de-Fer, and moved about hesitatingly for some minutes; some- times he made thirty steps running in the direction of the Rue du Vieux-Colombier, sometimes he turned back in haste toward the house of Monsieur Mériset. His irreso- jute mind delivered itself up to an inward soliloquy. “Tf I go to seek assistance,’’ thought he, ‘‘for investing the house and seizing Belle- Rose, he may disappear during my absence. But if I remain, it is clear that I alone, agile and strong as he is, will never succeed in getting posses- sion of his person. Why the devil is Robert not at his post?’” The spy again took up his instrument and whistled. But Robert did not make his appearance. The spy put the whistle in his pocket, fearing, if he used it-again, to attract Belle-Rose’s attention; and decided to remain on the watch in the somber corner which he had quitted at the moment of the captain’s entrance in his ancient lodging. ‘‘When he leaves,’’ he said to himself, ‘‘if no one has come, I will follow him, and I will find on the route some of our men who can aid me to take him or kill him.’’ The spy pressed close to the wall and remained com- pletely immovable. Meanwhile Belle-Rose had followed Monsieur Mériset into the room where he had slept so often. “I have not a long time to stay with you,”’ he said to him, ‘‘as I am only going through Paris—-—"” “What! not even to-night?’’ exclaimed the honest pro- prietor, whose weakness for Belle-Rose we know. comicbooks (ete)