Go to his house, put your eye on everything, and bring word of the result." "One of my men heard horses in the forest just as they arrested the little groom; I've four fine fellows now on the track of whoever is hiding there," replied the gendarme.
He left the room, and the gallop of his horse which echoed on the paved courtyard died rapidly away.
"One thing is certain," said Corentin to himself, "either they have gone to Paris or they are retreating to Germany." He sat down, pulled a note-book from the pocket of his spencer, wrote two orders in pencil, sealed them, and made a sign to one of the gendarmes to come to him.
"Be off at full gallop to Troyes, wake up the prefect, and tell him to start the telegraph as soon as there's light enough." The gendarme departed.

The meaning of this movement and Corentin's intentions were so evident that the hearts of the household sank within them; but this new anxiety was additional to another that was now martyrizing them; their eyes were fixed on the sandal-wood box! All the while the two agents were talking together they were each taking note of those eager looks.

A sort of cold anger stirred the unfeeling hearts of these men who relished the power of inspiring terror.

The police man has the instincts and emotions of a hunter: but where the one employs his powers of mind and body in killing a hare, a partridge, or a deer, the other is thinking of saving the State, or a king, and of winning a large reward.

So the hunt for men is superior to the other class of hunting by all the distance that there is between animals and human beings.
Moreover, a spy is forced to lift the part he plays to the level and the importance of the interests to which he is bound.