"
"Where?" asked I.
"In the Valdoche Hills," he answered, "where the Gray Monk
lives--by the Tall Calvary."
He gasped with pain. I let him rest awhile, and eased the
bandages on him, and at last he told his story:
"I am to be gone soon. For two years I have wait for the good
time to kill him--Bigot--to send him and his palace to hell. I can
not tell you how I work to do it. It is no matter--no. From an old
cellar I mine, and at last I get the powder lay beneath him--his
palace. So. But he does not come to the Palace much this many
months, and Madame Cournal is always with him, and it is hard to
do the thing in other ways. But I laugh when the English come in
the town, and when I see Bigot fly to his palace alone to get his
treasure-chest I think it is my time. So I ask the valet, and he
say he is in the private room that lead to the treasure-place.
Then I come back quick to the secret spot and fire my mine. In ten
minutes all will be done. I go at once to his room again, alone. I
pass through the one room, and come to the other. It is a room with
one small barred window. If he is there, I will say a word to him
that I have wait long to say, then shut the door on us both--for I
am sick of life--and watch him and laugh at him till the end comes.
If he is in the other room, then I have another way as sure--"
He paused, exhausted, and I waited till he could again go on.
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