It had all happened so suddenly that for a minute or two I knelt where I
was, with my hand still in his, like one in a dream. Then I roused
myself, and considered what was to be done.
The dead man was a good-looking youth, scarcely twenty, dressed in the
habit of a gentleman's groom, and evidently, by the smartness of his
accoutrement, in the employ of some one of importance. As to how he had
come by his death I could only guess. But I suspected the horseman I
had seen galloping back towards Brest in the morning twilight had had
something to do with it. The highwayman had met the traveller, and
shots had been exchanged--the one fatal, the other telling enough to
send the bandit flying. The poor wounded fellow had had strength enough
to turn his horse into the wood and cling to his seat. How long he had
stayed thus, slowly bleeding to death, I could not say; but the
diligence must have passed that way two hours ago, and he must have been
well ahead of it when his journey was thus suddenly stopped.
Then I recalled his dying words, and after tethering the horse set
myself to look for the papers he spoke of. I found them at last--the
passport in his breast pocket, whence he could easily produce it, the
others in his belt. The former described the bearer as John Cassidy,
travelling from Paris to Dublin and back on urgent private business,
duly signed and countersigned. It gave a description of the bearer,
even down to the clothes he wore: I supposed to enable any official who
passed him from one point of his journey to another to identify him.
The letters were two in number, one addressed to Citoyen Duport, a
Deputy of the National Convention, and marked with the greatest urgency.
The other--and this startled me the most--to one George Lestrange at
Paris, with no other address. Lestrange! The name called to mind one
or two memories. Was not the gay young officer I had once ferried
across to Rathmullan a Lestrange--a kinsman of my lady; and was not
Biddy McQuilkin of Kerry Keel, who once set her cap at my father, in the
service of this same Lestrange's aunt in Paris? Strange if this hot
errand should concern them! All things considered, I decided that the
wisest thing would be for me to put on the dead man's clothes, and make
myself in general appearance as near to the description of the passport
as possible. In fact, for the rest of this journey I must be John
Cassidy himself, travelling post to Paris, with a horse waiting on him
at each stage, a purse full of money, a pistol, and a belt containing
two urgent letters of introduction. Little dreamed I when I sneaked out
of Brest under the belly of that lumbering diligence that I was to go to
my journey's end in this style!
Before I started I buried the dead man, and along with him my cast-off
clothes, in a pit in the wood, which I covered over with leaves and
moss. Then I mounted my horse, stuck my loaded pistol in my belt,
commended my ways to Heaven, and cantered on in the face of the rosy
summer dawn towards Paris.