'Are you highwaymen, that you stop the way ?' The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but in a moment retorted, 'Enough trifling, sir! Who YOU are I do not know.

But the person riding at your rein is M.de Rosny.

Him I do know, and I warn him to stop.' I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my companion answered at once and almost in the same words I had used.

'Well, sir, and what of that ?' he said.
'What of that ?' the stranger exclaimed, spurring his horse so as still to bar the way.

'Why, only this, that you must be a madman to show yourself on this side of the Loire.' 'It is long since I have seen the other,' was my companion's unmoved answer.
'You are M.de Rosny?
You do not deny it ?' the man cried in astonishment.
'Certainly I do not deny it,' M.de Rosny answered bluntly.