"Absurd reasons."

"No, no, Monsieur le Prefet," Mazeroux pleaded, growing more and more excited. "I swear that you must listen to him. The house will be blown up--he said so--at three o'clock. We have a few minutes left. Let us go.

I entreat you, Monsieur le Prefet."

"In other words, you want us to run away."

"But it's not running away, Monsieur le Prefet. It's a simple precaution.

After all, we can't risk--You, yourself, Monsieur le Prefet--"

"That will do."

"But, Monsieur le Prefet, as Don Luis said--"

"That will do, I say!" repeated the Prefect harshly. "If you're afraid, you can take advantage of the order which I gave you and go off after Don Luis."

Mazeroux clicked his heels together and, old soldier that he was, saluted:

"I shall stay here, Monsieur le Prefet."

And he turned and went back to his place at a distance.

Silence followed. M. Desmalions began to walk up and down the room, with his hands behind his back. Then, addressing the chief detective and the secretary general:

"You are of my opinion, I hope?" he said.

"Why, yes, Monsieur le Prefet."

"Well, of course! To begin with, that supposition is based on nothing serious. And, besides, we are guarded, aren't we? Bombs don't come tumbling on one's head like that. It takes some one to throw them. Well, how are they to come? By what way?"

"Same way as the letters," the secretary general ventured to suggest.

"What's that? Then you admit--?"

The secretary general did not reply and M. Desmalions did not complete his sentence. He himself, like the others, experienced that same feeling of uneasiness which gradually, as the seconds sped past, was becoming almost intolerably painful.

Three o'clock in the morning! ... The words kept on recurring to his mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown up, by the mere effect of an infernal and all-powerful will?

"It's senseless, absolutely senseless!" he cried, stamping his foot.

But, on looking at his companions, he was amazed to see how drawn their faces were; and he felt his courage sink in a strange way. He was certainly not afraid; and the others were no more afraid than he. But all of them, from the chiefs to the simple detectives, were under the influence of that Don Luis Perenna whom they had seen accomplishing such extraordinary feats, and who had shown such wonderful ability throughout this mysterious adventure.

Consciously or unconsciously, whether they wished it or no, they looked upon him as an exceptional being endowed with special faculties, a being of whom they could not think without conjuring up the image of the amazing a.r.s.ene Lupin, with his legend of daring, genius, and superhuman insight.

And Lupin was telling them to fly. Pursued and hunted as he was, he voluntarily gave himself up to warn them of their danger. And the danger was immediate. Seven minutes more, six minutes more--and the house would be blown up.

With great simplicity, Mazeroux went on his knees, made the sign of the cross, and said his prayers in a low voice. The action was so impressive that the secretary general and the chief detective made a movement as though to go toward the Prefect of Police.

M. Desmalions turned away his head and continued his walk up and down the room. But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna's authority, his ardent entreaties, his frenzied conviction--all this upset him. He had seen Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in the present circ.u.mstances, to neglect the man's warning.

"Let's go," he said.

The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates of prudence.

They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.

"No," he said, "go on; I'll follow you."

He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.

In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all the plain-clothesmen had a.s.sembled, he sent them out of the house together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:

"Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in half an hour."

"And you, Monsieur le Prefet?" whispered Mazeroux, "You won't remain here, I hope?"

"No, that I shan't!" he said, laughing. "If I take our friend Perenna's advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!"

"There is only two minutes left."

"Our friend Perenna spoke of three o'clock, not of two minutes to three. So--"

He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications opposite the house.

"Perhaps we ought to stoop down," suggested Mazeroux.

"Let's stoop, by all means," said the Prefect, still in a good humour.

"But, honestly, if there's no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous."

"There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Prefet," declared Mazeroux.

"What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!"

"You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Prefet."

They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the beating of their hearts. It was interminable.

Three o'clock sounded from somewhere.

"You see," grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, "you see! There's nothing, thank goodness!"

And he growled:

"It's idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could any one imagine such nonsense!"

Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof of a neighbouring building.

Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and, the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano had erupted.