ANOTHER ESCAPE.
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 passed 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 rushing 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 hoarse 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 God, 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 passage. 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 God 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 God!" 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 pass 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 anticipated
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 pricked up their ears. "What news?"
"Tourville's fleet is ruined--burned--by the English! 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
passing 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.