The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-01-02
PART I.

Coz le Roi, the highwayman, started |
up in his bed when the great bell of
Notre Dame struck twelve. Silently |
and with a waking mans curiosity, he
counted the strokes, noddng his head
at each one, and thinking to himself
that it would be five or six of the
morning and time for him to be about. |
But when the cleck went on to tell
the hour of midnight, an exclamation
burst from his lips.
"Sapristi," said he to himself 81
have not slept an hour. / might know
that by the music below. Saint Paul!
what throats they have!"
No man cares to be deceived with
the tricks of sleep; nor was Coz le Roi,
otherwise the Little Red Man, other
wise Jacques Cabot, the notorious
scourge of the highways about Paris,
and one of the most successful robbers
that ever set spurs to u horse, an eX
ception to the rule. He concluded that
he had a personal grievance against
the night for thus cheating him. He
began to tell himself that he was thirs-
ty, and would do well to draw ON his
boots and venture out to a cabaret for
a cup of wine. Then he remembered
that he was not in the habit of losing
bawled beneath he windows of his
garret. Some strange sound, some un-
usual omen of the night, must have
troubled his ears while he slept, he
said. And, for the first time for many
a day, he began to remember that the
guards of the new lieutenant of police
Were then hunting for him out in the
woods beyond Fontenay.
"Sang-bleu," he cried, springing sud-
denly from his bed, and going to the
window of his garret, that he might
look down thence to the narrow street
below, lam | a woman that / should
start at shadows on the wall? What a
thing to tell-at the house of the Red
Cock, tool"
He put his head out of the window,
and the moving panorama of the slum
below reassued him. There, in the
heart of the thieves quarter of the
Paris of 1883, he might well think him
self safe even from the early energies
of NJ. de Sartines who had just come to
be lieutenant of police. Though the
day had begun with driving sleet and
bitter wind, few of the beggars in that
Rue ST. Sauveur thought of sleep, or
indeed of anything but they pleasures.
Regularly, when night fell, these
rogues, whom Coz le Roi now looked
down upon with satisfaction, FASTENED
to quit the church doors and the gates
of the hotels and hurried to the laby-
ninth of the filthy lanes and tottermg
houses, which had marked their king
dom behind the Rue Mauconseil, almost
since Paris had risen about the islands
of the marshes. A motley group they
We're; blind men counting their sous;
1pnprC HING off che
lame men carrying their crutches; VEN
dors of oranges with their cry: "Portu-
gal, Portugal" rogues whom the glib
bet long had claimed in vain. Weary
with the labOrs of the understanding
day, eager for the shelter of the caba-
ret ripe for quarrel or drink or play,
they now rioted in the security of the
alleys behind the markets. and so hid
from the night of the greater Paris the
cankering sore which was her re-
proach by day.
Coz lie Roi permitted the bitter wind
to blow upon his face for some min
u utes; then he drew back his head, for
he remembered his intention to drink a
cup of wine at the nearest cabaret, and
he found the idea very good one.
Bah" said he to himself, as he
tugged at his long boots and looked at
his pistols, which lay ready for prim-
ing, upon the table by his ragged bed
''what have 1 to do with Womans tat
tie here? Guards in the Rue st. Sau-
veur! Nom du diable, what a day that
would be. l would like to see it,"
The notion amused him, and he
chuckled to himself pleasantly; but, of
sudden, the laugh died down upon his
lips, and he sat upon the bed like one
1,.,l L.,