The old women made a great many signs of the cross.
In the meantime, Boulatruelle's manoeuvres in the forest ceased; and he resumed his regular occupation of roadmending; and people gossiped of something else.
Some persons, however, were still curious, surmising that in all this there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's bank-bills, and that the road-mender had half discovered the secret.
The most "puzzled" were the school-master and Thenardier, the proprietor of the tavern, who was everybody's friend, and had not disdained to ally himself with Boulatruelle.
"He has been in the galleys," said Thenardier.
"Eh!
Good God! no one knows who has been there or will be there."
One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law would have instituted an inquiry as to what Boulatruelle did in the forest, and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that he would have been put to the torture in case of need, and that Boulatruelle would not have resisted the water test, for example.
"Let us put him to the wine test," said Thenardier.
They made an effort, and got the old road-mender to drinking. Boulatruelle drank an enormous amount, but said very little. He combined with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a gormandizer with the discretion of a judge. Nevertheless, by dint of returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thenardier and the schoolmaster imagined that they had made out:--
One morning, when Boulatruelle was on his way to his work, at daybreak, he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, a shovel and a pickaxe, concealed, as one might say.
However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and pick of Father Six-Fours, the water-carrier, and would have thought no more about it.
But, on the evening of that day, he saw, without being seen himself, as he was hidden by a large tree, "a person who did not belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well," directing his steps towards the densest part of the wood.
Translation by Thenardier:
A comrade of the galleys. Boulatruelle obstinately refused to reveal his name.
This person carried a package--something square, like a large box or a small trunk. Surprise on the part of Boulatruelle.
However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that the idea of following that "person" had occurred to him.
But it was too late; the person was already in the thicket, night had descended, and Boulatruelle had not been able to catch up with him.
Then he had adopted the course of watching for him at the edge of the woods. "It was moonlight."
Two or three hours later, Boulatruelle had seen this person emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel and pick.