_The Comte de Mar._
"Which way went he?"
"The man who just came out?"
"This way!"
"No, yonder!"
"Nay, I saw him not."
"A man with bound hands, you say?"
"Here!"
"Down that way!"
"A man in black, was he? Here he is!"
"Fool, no; he went that way!"
M. Étienne, Vigo, I, and the guardsmen rushed hither and thither into
the ever-thickening crowd, shouting after Lucas and exchanging rapid
questions with every one we passed. But from the very first the search
was hopeless. It was dark by this time and a mass of people blocked the
street, surging this way and that, some eagerly joining in the chase,
others, from ready sympathy with any rogue, doing their best to hinder
and confuse us. There was no way to tell how he had gone. A needle in a
haystack is easy found compared with him who loses himself in a Paris
crowd by night.
M. Étienne plunged into the first opening he saw, elbowing his way
manfully. I followed in his wake, his tall bright head making as good an
oriflamme as the king's plume at Ivry, but when at length we came out
far down the street we had seen no trace of Lucas.
"He is gone," said M. le Comte.
"Yes, monsieur. If it were day they might find him, but not now."
"No. Even Vigo will not find him. He is worsted for once. He has let
slip the shrewdest knave in France. Well, he is gone," he repeated after
a minute. "It cannot be mended by me. He is off, and so am I."
"Whither, monsieur?"
"That is my concern."
"But monsieur will see M. le Duc?"
He shook his head.
"But, monsieur--"
He broke in on me fiercely.
"Think you that I--I, smirched and sullied, reeking with plots of
murder--am likely to betake myself to the noblest gentleman in France?"
"He will welcome M. le Comte."
"Nay; he believed me guilty."
"But, monsieur--"
"You may not say 'but' to me."
"Pardon, monsieur. Am I to tell Vigo monsieur is gone?"
"Yes, tell him." His lip quivered; he struggled hard for steadiness.
"You will go to M. le Duc, Félix, and rise in his favour, for it was you
saved his life. Then tell him this from me--that some day, when I have
made me worthy to enter his presence, then will I go to him and beg his
forgiveness on my knees. And now farewell."
He slipped away into the darkness.