Quickly, the two ruffians propped Jules against the bank at the side of the road: the wretch had fainted clean away. Then they took out their cigarettes, and moving a few steps away, they pretended to be sheltering themselves in order to strike a light.

They need not have taken this precaution.

The car stopped in front of them. The familiar voice of Mimile was heard:

“Got the rabbit then?”

“Yes, old ’un, feet first!”

“Pitch it into the balloon then!”

“The balloon?” questioned the Beadle. “Whatever’s that?” Emilet laughed.

“At times, my brothers, your ignorance, mechanically speaking, is crass!... The balloon is the back part of my car, I’d have you know.”

The Beard sniggered.

“Good!... Pick it up! Now, Beadle!”

The two seized the inert body of Jules by shoulders and feet, swung it and flung it brutally into the limousine.

A rug, casually draped over the trussed victim, hid him from observation.

“Now we’ll embark,” announced Emilet.

As a precaution, the young hooligan asked:

“The bunny snores?”

“Yes,” replied the Beadle. “He is travelling in No Nightmare Land.” He cackled.

But Emilet was alarmed.

“You haven’t snuffed him out, have you?”

“No danger of it! He’s only shamming!”

“Off then!” said Emilet.

They rolled away at top speed.

The bandits’ lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and oil cans, lay scattered on the ground: these were worn-out tools: they had not served their purpose for many a day.

The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for the insufficient illumination.

Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it threw upon the ground, a phantasmic group of weird human creatures pressed close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, drooling, singing.

A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually blinking, turned to a young woman.

“Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood that we should be waiting for him here?” Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders.