Another impatient movement by Burns led me to speak up hastily in his defence.
"Wait," I said, laying my grasp upon his gun, "he has no breath left with which to make reply.

'T is the French gallant who raced with me, the same whom you met at Hawkins's Ford; and no doubt he felt good reason to play the ghost here in this dark pit." "Ay," panted De Croix painfully, "I truly thought the savages were upon me, and sought to frighten them by the only means I could devise.
_Sacre_! but you hit me a sore blow in the ribs! If I have frightened you, 't was no worse than the terror that took me at your entrance here." For a time none spoke, and no sound, save De Croix's labored breathing, broke the silence.

Burns had turned slightly, and I knew was listening intently for any sound without.

Apparently satisfied that the noise made by us had not been overheard, he asked in his old deliberate drawl: "How in thunder, Mister Parly-voo, did ye git up thet thar combination, anyhow ?" I heard the Frenchman chuckle, and pinched him as a warning to be careful.

He answered, in his reckless, easy way: "'T was all simple enough behind the scenes, Messieurs.