In The Day Of Adversity Part 28

He alighted in the exact middle of the porch roof and fell with his ankles against the foot-high raised parapet. Then he paused a moment ere deciding what he should do next.

The sound of voices and clanking sabres were coming nearer--also it would soon now be light. And he wondered that he heard no noise from the man watching within; wondered that he was not staring about for those who were coming; almost wondered that he was not standing at the door with it open, ready to go out and meet them.

One thing St. Georges recognised as necessary to be done at once, viz., to quit the roof of the porch. There was no safety for him there; the instant Andre entered his room he would perceive he was flown, would rush to the window, and, looking out, would doubtless perceive him crouching and huddled up. He must quit that, and at once.

But where? Then suddenly he bethought him of the stable that ran off at left angles from the house, close by the porch itself. That would be his best place of safety; moreover, he would have the horse to his hand; on it he might yet escape. And also from the open door of the stable he could reconnoitre, observe what happened, what must happen, in the next few moments. For now the voices of those who were approaching sounded very near. A little while, and his fate now trembling in the balance would be decided.

He lowered himself quickly over the side of the doorway roof--having but a distance of four or five feet to drop when hanging down--and observed that still the door was fast and that there was no sign of Andre about--doubtless he was waiting for the men to come, ere opening it! Immediately afterward he touched the ground and turned his steps to the alley leading to the stable and swiftly pa.s.sed up to it, keeping under the shelter of a low wall. So far he was safe!

The horse whinnied a little as he entered--already the creature had come to know him well, perhaps because of his kindly treatment--but he silenced it at once by placing his arm over its mouth and nostrils, then seized the bridle and saddle and prepared it ready for mounting, doing so very quietly, for now the men were close at hand! This he did very rapidly, yet determinately, for, the animal once saddled, his chance would be still better. He had made his plans: if, when he was discovered missing, any should advance down the alley to seek for him, or to search if the horse was gone, he had resolved to mount as they advanced and to charge through them. Then, when he had done all that was necessary, he removed his sword from his back, drew it from the sheath and affixed the latter to his side. He was ready now.

And not too soon! In the now gathering light, sombre and lead-coloured, with, above, some clouds from which a misty rain was falling slightly, he saw three men belonging to the Garde de la Poste arrive in front of the door. One, a sergeant, struck lightly with his finger on the door and bent his ear against it.

"_Si, si!_" he heard this man say, a second after, evidently in reply to Andre from within, "quite ready. Send him forth." And still he kept his ear to the side post. A moment later he spoke again, also doubtless in answer to a question from within.

"Nay, have no fear," he said; "once outside he is ours," and he turned to the other two and gave them some orders which St. Georges could not overhear. He could see, however; and what he saw was, that under their superior's directions each of the others drew their heavy dragoon sabres--for to that branch of the army the Garde de la Poste belonged--and placed themselves one on either side of the porch.

Then all listened attentively.

A moment later, from the first and top floor, through the open window from which St. Georges had escaped, they heard the shouts of the man Andre; and St. Georges heard them, too, and grasped his sword more firmly, and with them came from the other side of the house a cry from the woman.

"_Carogne!_" exclaimed the sergeant, "the galley boy is giving trouble--Andre cannot induce him to descend. Yet, hark! he comes!

listen to his tread on the stairs--he is rus.h.i.+ng down. Be ready!" and as he spoke the two men raised their swords.

Again all heard the voice of Andre shouting within, the woman screaming, too; the door was fumbled at, and in the still, dim, misty light St. Georges saw a form rush out, and a minute later fall shrieking heavily to the ground, cut down by both sabres of the dragoons.

"We have him! we have him!" the sergeant shouted. "Come forth, man; he is ours!"

And as he spoke St. Georges leaped into the saddle, knowing that the time had almost come.

Another moment, and he heard one of the dragoons, who had been bending over the fallen man, exclaim:

"_Mon dieu!_ What have we done? This is no _galerien_, but Andre himself!"

"What!" bawled the sergeant. "What! _Mon dieu!_ it is." Then he said in a horror-stricken hoa.r.s.e voice, "Is he dead?"

"_Ma foi!_ I fear so. His head is in half," the man replied. And with a look of terror he addressed his comrade: "That was your stroke, not mine. I struck him on the shoulder. Thank G.o.d, his blood is on your head!"

"_Fichte!_" exclaimed the second, a man of harder mettle. "What matters? It is our duty. And the _piege_ was his, not ours. He was a fool. But where--where is the _galerien_? We must have him!"

"Into the house," exclaimed the sergeant, "into the house! The woman screams no more--doubtless he has murdered her. In, I say, and seek for him; scour cellar and garret. In, in!" and together they rushed into the cabaret, finding, as they pushed the door further open, Andre's wife lying fainting in the pa.s.sage. She had followed her husband down the stairs and witnessed his end.

That husband's greed--his withholding from the others the fact that the escaped galley slave had a good horse--led to that galley slave's escape. For, all unknowing that, not twenty paces off, the horse was there ready saddled to bear him away, they never thought of the stable, but, instead, plunged into the inn and commenced at once roaming from room to room searching for him.

As they did so, his opportunity came. Swiftly he led the animal down the alley to the door--it had no other exit, or he would have escaped by it--equally swiftly he led it some distance down the street, praying to G.o.d all the time that its hoofs striking on the stones might not reach their ears, and sweating with fear and apprehension as he heard their shouts and calls to one another. Then, when he was fifty yards away from the house, he jumped into the saddle, patted his horse on the neck, and rode swiftly for the East Gate.

Whether he would get through before the whole east part of the city was alarmed--as he knew it soon must be--he could not tell yet. If the gates were not open, he was as much lost as before; he must be taken.

But would they be so open? Would they? As he prayed they might, the cathedral clock rang out again, struck four.

"O G.o.d!" he murmured, "grant this may be the hour. Grant it! grant it!"

It seemed to him as though his prayer was heard. Nearing the East Gate, placed on the west side of a branch of the river Eure, he saw the bascule descending; he knew that four o'clock _was_ the hour. Also he saw several peasants standing by, ready to pa.s.s over it into the country beyond, doubtless either to fetch in produce for the city or going to their work. He was safe now, he felt; if none came behind, there would be no hindrance to his exit.

"You ride early, monsieur," the keeper said, glancing up at him from his occupation of throwing down some grain to his fowls, which he had just released for the day. Then, taking out a pocketbook, "Your name, monsieur, and destination?" he asked.

"Destination, Paris. Name----" and he paused. He had not antic.i.p.ated this. Yet he must give a name and at once; at any moment from the city might appear a crowd, or the dragoons shouting to the man to bar his egress. "Name, Dubois. And I ride in haste. You have heard the news?"

"News! no," exclaimed the man, while even the peasants going to their toil p.r.i.c.ked up their ears. "What news?"

"Tourville's fleet is ruined--burned--by the Englis.h.!.+ Stop me not. I ride to carry it. By orders!"

"_Mon Dieu!_" the man exclaimed, "by the English. Tourville defeated by them? It is impossible!"

"It is true," while as he spoke--still moving across the now lowered drawbridge as he did so--one of the peasants, an old woman, wailed: "My boy was there--in the Ambitieux! Is that burnt?"

"I do not know, good woman," he replied, unwilling to tell the poor old creature the worst. "I must not tarry."

And in a moment he had put the horse to the gallop. He had left Bayeux behind. Out of the jaws of death he had escaped once more. "But," he asked himself, "for how long? How long?"

That danger which he had escaped so soon after setting foot in France was not again equalled on the road, and a week later he neared the old fortified town of Rambouillet. He had progressed by obscure ways to reach it, avoiding every large city or town to which he had approached, and skirting, either on the north or south, Caen, Evreux, and Bernay. He was drawing nearer to Troyes now, nearer to where his child was, if still alive, nearer to the satisfaction he meant to have by his denunciation of the treachery of Aurelie de Roquemaure.

Yet, as he so progressed, he asked himself of what use would such denunciation be--of what importance in comparison with the regaining of Dorine? That was all in all to him; the supreme desire of his life now--to regain her, to escape out of France once more; to earn subsistence sufficient for them both in England. Beyond that, the satisfaction of taxing Mademoiselle de Roquemaure with her treachery--the treachery of, with her mother, appearing to sympathize with him when they first met at the manoir, of expressing that sympathy again in Paris during their brief encounter outside the Louvre, of her false and lying words to Boussac--would be little worth. Yet, small as that satisfaction would be, something within told him he must obtain it; must stand face to face with her and look into those clear gray eyes that had the appearance of being so honest and were so false; must ask her why, since she so coveted all that his and his child's life might deprive her of, she had stooped to the duplicity of pretending to sympathize with him; to the baseness of stealing his child from the man who had himself stolen it--he knew not why; to the foul meanness of accompanying her menial--herself masked to prevent detection--and urging him on to murder; herself, by complicity, a murderess! And as he so pondered, he reflected also with what eager, cruel pleasure--for he knew now, and almost shuddered at knowing, that the wrongs inflicted on him had turned him toward cruelty--he would tell her of how her vile brother had died before his eyes.

So, determinately, he rode on, nearing Rambouillet, yet feeling as though sometimes he could go no further, must drop from his horse into the road. In the week since he escaped from Bayeux he had been feeling that day by day he was becoming ill, that all he had gone through--the immersion in the sea, the intensity of his excitement at Bayeux, his long rides and exposure to the weather--was like ere long to overwhelm him. Sometimes for hours he rode almost unconscious of what was pa.s.sing around him; he burned with a consuming fever, his limbs and head ached and his thirst was terrible.

Yet, urged on and on by the object he had in view, he still went forward until, at last, he halted outside the town he had now come to, beneath the walls of the old castle of Rambouillet.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FLEUR-DE-LIS.

The hot sun of those last days of May beat down on the white roads and the orchards and the pastures surrounding the town of Rambouillet, and shone also with unpleasant strength upon La Baronne de Louvigny, being driven back to her house within the walls. And madame's aristocratic countenance, handsome as she was, showed signs of irritation--perhaps from the effects of the heat, perhaps from other things--while her dark eyes, glancing out from under the hood of the summer _caleche_ in which she was lying back, looked as though they belonged to a woman who was not, at the present moment at least, in the best of humours.

She was still a very young woman and was also a widow, the baron having been killed in a duel some few years ago, which had not grieved her in the least, since he was an old man who had married her for her good looks and, possibly, her more aristocratic connections than he himself possessed; yet, in spite of these advantages, there were things in her existence which annoyed her. Among these things was, for instance, one which was extremely irritating--namely, that for four years now she had been required to abstain from visiting Paris or the court, either at Versailles, Marley, or St. Germains, and this notwithstanding that her blood was of the most blue and that she claimed connection with the most aristocratic families in France.

Truly it was an annoying thing to be young, handsome, and very well to do--owing to her not _too_ aristocratic husband, the late baron--and to be of the blue blood owing to her own family, and yet to be under a cloud in consequence of a scandal--of being mixed up in an affair, a scene, or tragedy, which it was impossible to altogether hush up. At least she found it annoying, and, so finding it, revolted a good deal at the ban laid on her. Still, revolt or repine as she might, Louis's word was law in all matters of social importance, and she was forced to bow to it, in the hopes that, as time pa.s.sed on, the ban might be removed. But it was not strange, perhaps, that in so bowing, her temper, always a hot, pa.s.sionate one, had grown a little uncertain.

It did not serve to improve that temper on this hot day that, at a moment when the _caleche_ emerged into a particularly sunny portion of the road, unsheltered by either tree or bank, it should suddenly come to a stop and expose her to the full glare of the sun itself.

Moreover, the jerk with which the horses were pulled up gave her a jar which did not tend to better matters.

"What are you stopping for?" she asked angrily of one of the lackeys who had by now jumped down from behind. "I bade you take me back as soon as possible. And why in this broad glare? _Animal!_" and she drew her upper lip back, showing her small white teeth.