But no place of concealment presented itself. The broad pavement showed
a long, unbroken space of moonlit stone, save where one tall tree
reared its stately height outside the curb-stone, and flung long,
weird shadows across the front of madame's house.
Carmontelle looked up and down the street, and shook his head.
"I can see no hiding-place but the tree," he said.
"We need none better, unless you are too stout to scale it," Van
Zandt answered, coolly, turning a questioning glance upon the rather
corpulent form of his good-looking companion.
"You will see," laughed the Southerner, softly.
He glanced up and down the street, and seeing no one in sight, made a
bound toward the tree, flung out his arms, and scaled it with admirable
agility, finding a very comfortable seat among its low-growing
branches. Van Zandt followed his example with boyish ease, and they
were soon seated close to each other on the boughs of the big tree,
almost as comfortable as if they had been lounging on the satin couches
of madame's _recherché_ salon. It was delightful up there among the
cool green leaves, with the fresh wind blowing the perfume of madame's
flowers into their faces.
"I feel like a boy again," said the journalist, gayly.
"Softly; we are opposite the windows of madame's chamber, I think,"
cautioned Carmontelle.
"She will not come up yet; she will wait in the salon for Remond. It is
but a few minutes to midnight."
A step approached, and they held their breath in excessive caution.
It passed on--only a guardian of the peace pacing his beat serenely,
his brass buttons shining in the moonlight.
Van Zandt whispered:
"I am not sure but we should have invoked the aid of the law in our
trouble."
But Pierre Carmontelle shook his head.
"The law is too slow sometimes," he said. "We will place the little
girl in some safe refuge first, then, if Madame Lorraine attempts to
make trouble, we will resort to legal measures. I am not apprehensive
of trouble on that score, however, for madame really has no legal right
to the girl. Has she not declared scores of times that her maid died,
and left the child upon her hands, and that, only for pity's sake, she
would have sent her off to an orphan asylum?"
Steps and voices came along the pavement--two roystering lads, fresh
from some festal scene, their steps unsteady with wine. They passed out
of sight noisily recounting their triumph to each other. Then the echo
of wheels in the distance, "low on the sand, loud on the stone."
"Are you armed?" whispered the Louisianian, nervously.
"No."
The cold steel of a pistol pressed his hand.
"Take that; I brought two," whispered Carmontelle. "We may need them.
One of us must stand at bay, while the other seizes and bears away the
girl."
"It shall be I. I will cover your flight," Van Zandt said, quietly.
Under his calm exterior was seething a tempest of wrath and indignation
that made him clutch the weapon in a resolute grasp. He had pure and
fair young sisters at home. The thought of them made him feel more
strongly for madame's forlorn victim.
Their hearts leaped into their throats as Remond's close carriage
dashed into sight, whirled up to madame's door, and stopped.
The door swung open, and Remond, muffled up to the ears, sprung out and
went up to the house.
Its portals opened as if by magic, with a swish of silken robes in the
hall. Madame herself had silently admitted her co-conspirator.
Most fortunately the back of the carriage was toward the tree, and the
driver's attention was concentrated upon his restive horses.
Silently as shadows the two men slid down from their novel
hiding-place, tiptoed across the pavement, and took up their grim
station on either side the closed door.
Not a moment too soon!
At that very instant the door unclosed, and Remond appeared upon the
threshold bearing in his arms a slight, inert figure wrapped in a long,
dark cloak. Madame, still in her diamonds, roses, and silvery drapery,
appeared behind him just in time to see a powerful form swoop down upon
Remond, wrest his prize from him, and make off with wonderful celerity,
considering the weight of the girlish form in his arms.
She fell back with a cry of dismay.
"_Diable_! _Spies_!"
Remond had recoiled on the instant with a fierce oath hissed in his
beard--only an instant; then he dashed forward in mad pursuit, only to
be tripped by an outstretched foot that flung him face downward on the
hard pavement.
Scrambling up in hot haste, with the blood gushing from his nostrils,
he found his way barred by Eliot Van Zandt.
"Back, villain! Your prey has escaped you!" the young man cried,
sternly.
A black and bitter oath escaped Remond, and his trembling hand sought
his belt.
He hissed savagely:
"Accursed spy! Your life shall answer for this!"
Then the long keen blade of a deadly knife flashed in the moonlight.
Simultaneously there was the flash and report of a pistol. Both men
fell at once to the ground, and at the same moment there was a swish
and rustle of silvery silk, as beautiful Mme. Lorraine retreated from
her threshold, slamming and locking her door upon the sight of the
bloodshed of which she had been the cause.
"Let them kill each other, the fools, if they have no more sense," she
muttered, scornfully, heartlessly, as she retired to her salon.
Remond's horses had been so frightened by the pistol-shot that they had
run off with their alarmed driver, who had dropped the reins in the
first moment of terror. There now remained only two of the six souls
present a moment ago, Van Zandt and Remond lying silent where they had
fallen under the cold, white light of the moonlight.
But presently the Frenchman struggled slowly up to his feet, and put
his hand to his shoulder with a stifled curse.
"The dog has put a bullet through my shoulder. Never mind, we are
quits, for I ran my knife through his heart," he muttered, hastening
away from the scene of bloodshed.
But Eliot Van Zandt lay still where he had fallen, with his ghastly
white face upturned to the sky, and the red blood pouring in a torrent
from the gaping wound in his breast.