 
THAT evening the doors of the inn were closed earlier than usual. Ali had given his servants a holiday to go to the fair at Montella, and was thus left alone with his four lodgers. He locked all the doors, put up the chain at the front gate, ascertained that the shutters were closed, all of which were precautions he did not usually take. Then he went down into the cellar, where there was a collection of weapons of all descriptions. He selected a large knife, which he carefully sharpened; put on a shirt of mail, as easy-fitting as silk, but perfectly sword-proof; put on a helmet of extraordinary shape, which completely concealed his face, and went up-stairs again softly. On arriving at the top of the stairs he put out his lamp, and stole forward on tiptoe. He stopped in succession at the doors of the four knights, and peeped through the keyhole to see what they were doing. Mont-Rognon was at his eighth bottle; Porc-en-Truie was asleep; Allegrignac was taking the fresh air in the garden; Maragougnia was furtively counting his money. “Good!” said Ali to himself. “In one hour the gentleman who is at supper will have finished his ninth bottle, and tumbled under the table; the one who is dozing will be snoring soundly; the one who is meditating will be asleep; and as to the fourth-” The proprietor of the “Crocodile” said no more; he had reached the stable, where he flung himself down on the straw. At midnight Allegrignac woke up in a fright. He thought he heard a piercing cry. “Somebody’s having his throat cut,” said the Count de SalenÇon. He sat down on the foot of his bed and listened. All was silent; you might have heard the spiders spinning their webs. “I wasn’t dreaming, nevertheless—no; I am sure I heard a cry.” He continued to listen, and now the silence made him tremble. He remembered his bargain with the innkeeper. The idea that he was the instigator of the crime which undoubtedly had just been committed deprived him of sleep. He dressed himself, and sat himself down on the side of his bed, with his drawn sword in his hand. In a quarter of an hour two more shrieks resounded through the night. Allegrignac sprang up as briskly as if in obedience to a hidden spring. These renewed cries alarmed him. “Everybody is having his throat cut!” said he to himself, growing more and more frightened. “My conscience has only to answer for one of the crimes; so, if Master Ali is too zealous, I am not responsible.” As a precaution, he rolled his bed against the door, put the table and chairs on the top of it, and kept watch. The rest of the night passed peaceably and quietly. The moon accomplished her nocturnal round, and when the sun reappeared, Allegrignac, ashamed of his panic, restored everything to its place. At seven o’clock Ali knocked at the door. “Here is what you want,” said he, placing a small sack on the count’s bed. “Have you the money ready?” “There it is.” “I should recommend you to lose no time in setting out, for I think I saw one of your companions this morning.” Allegrignac did not wait to hear this advice repeated. He went down-stairs, and, finding his horse ready at the door, he tied the sack to the saddle-bow, set spurs to his nag, and rode off at a gallop. Ali smiled to see him go, and then, when he was no longer in sight, turned into the apartment of the Baron of Mont-Rognon. “I have obeyed your orders, sir. Here is what you required.” And he flung a sack on the table, as he had already done in the case of Allegrignac. “There is the sum we agreed on,” said the baron, tendering him the twenty-five pieces. “Saddle my horse, I am in a hurry to be off!” “It is ready saddled,” said the landlord, taking the money; “your honour will find it at the foot of the stairs.” Mont-Rognon went out for the first time for a month. He attached the small sack to the saddle-bow as Allegrignac had done, and in a few minutes was out of sight. Ali did not on this day enter the two rooms occupied by Porc-en-Truie and Maragougnia. He spent his time in counting his money. “Fifty gold pieces from the drunken knight, plus forty for his keep, will be ninety. Sixty from the talkative knight, plus thirty-five for his board and lodging, will be ninety-five. That makes one hundred and eighty-five pieces in all, if I know anything of arithmetic. Add to this the purses of the lazy knight and the knight of the raven plumes—the one containing one hundred and fifty and the other a hundred and forty pieces, amounting to two hundred and ninety—which I must add to one hundred and eighty-five, leaving a total four hundred and seventy-five pieces of good new money. This is more than one wants to begin life with honestly, so I can afford myself that little whim—and will do so!” Ali PÉpÉ was unable to realise this laudable purpose. He was hanged eight days after, as you, my young friends, will learn, if you continue to read this history.
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