"Good to confuse twenty men," he said.

"A brace of 'em are bound to drop, and they don't know which one." He raised a pistol lazily, and looked out along its barrel through the open, sunshiny window.

Something in the pose of the body, in the curve of the arm, struck Nicolas strangely.

He moved almost in front of Ferrol.

There came back to him mechanically the remembrance of a piece of silver on the butt of one of the highwayman's pistols! The same piece of silver was on the butt of Ferrol's pistol.