So, instead of increasing the sentries round the house, they actually reduced them in order to reinforce the pursuing party. My policy was to get away while the coast was comparatively unprotected, and trust to night and my good angel to get clear of the place. So, when the excitement had subsided a little, and the remaining soldiers on guard were summoned to a.s.sist at the hanging of the second batch of my shipmates, I stole from my hiding-place and, covered by the sea-mist which came with the sundown, slid down the pipe and crossed the wall, and set off as briskly as I could in an easterly direction through the outskirts of the town.
The streets were moderately crowded with wayfarers and loungers, and as I sauntered along with a big French cigar in my mouth, which had cost me two of my few remaining sous, no one paid me any particular heed. A few of the soldiers eyed me suspiciously as a doubtful character, but they were too accustomed to queer sea-dogs prowling about the place to consider me worth the trouble of a challenge.
At last I came to one of the posting taverns of the town where the coach for Paris was beginning to take up pa.s.sengers in the presence of the usual curious crowd of idlers. At the present time, when everybody went in terror of his life, and to be suspected of any design against the liberties of France was the same thing as being condemned for it, it was no easy task even for the most innocent and well-conducted traveller to get clear of a town like Brest.
The few merchants and tourists and nervous women who ventured were made to pa.s.s through a row of soldiers, who examined their pa.s.sports narrowly, and sometimes ordered them to stand aside for further inquiry; a command which sent the blood out of the cheeks of him who heard it, and made him think no more of the mail-coach but of the low tumbrel on which the victims of the guillotine took their last dreadful drive.
Even while I stood, there was one woman--a would-be traveller--who failed to satisfy the officer on guard, and who, on being ordered back, fell on her knees with shrieks and begged for mercy. And not one of those who stood gaping beside me but said she would be in luck if she got it.
Still more fuss was made about a horseman who demanded leave to ride forward to Paris on an errand of hot haste. He was, to all appearance, a gentleman"s lackey, and, from the little I heard of the talk, spoke English easier than French. He was ordered to dismount while the officer carefully read his pa.s.sport by the light of a lantern and inspected his letters of introduction and even of credit. Finally, after much suspense, he was allowed to remount, which he did in less than a moment, and clattered away through the pouring rain out into the wet night.
The sight of him made me envious indeed. What would I not give for a sound horse under me and a sound pa.s.sport in my pocket!
At last the diligence was nearly ready. The luggage was stowed in the boot, and two great mail baskets were swung and padlocked on the bar underneath. The four horses were brought out and put to, and driver, guard, and officer retired to the hostel for a parting gla.s.s.
An impulse seized me then to slip out of the crowd and creep forward on the road under the deep shadow of the wall. Far I could not go, I knew, for at the barrier I should be detected and stopped. But the coach, having been so carefully inspected at its starting-point, would, I judged, be allowed through the barrier without further challenge. It should not be my fault if I did not go through with it.
The rain was pouring in sheets, and on such a night no one would be likely to walk abroad for pleasure. Nor between the hostel and the barrier was it probable that any sentinel would patrol the empty street.
At any rate I met nothing, except a market-cart coming in, the occupants of which were too busy discussing the handling they had received at the barrier to look under the shadow of the wall for a vagrant boy.
At last I found a convenient place, where the road was dark as night, and where a sharp turn made it likely that the horses would be taken slowly past. Here I crouched, dripping from head to foot, for a long ten minutes.
Then my heart beat as I heard the dull rumble of the wheels, and caught the lurid glare of the two lamps coming. By the brief glance I got I saw that the guard (as I had hoped) had crouched in for shelter under the driver"s hood, and that the sole occupant of the back _coupe_ was buried under his tarpaulin.
Now was my time. I had carefully selected my point of attack. The two baskets I spoke of underneath the coach swung on double iron bars, and between the two, could I only scramble there, there was just room for me to perch, completely hidden, at any rate while night lasted, from the keenest of eyes.
I saw the driver throw himself back and pull in the reins for the corner, and in the momentary check of the speed I darted out from my hiding-place, and clambered in under the tail of the coach and reached the bars between the baskets. But for Providence I should have fallen between the wheels. As it was, the start forward of the horses carried me dragging on my toes twenty yards before I could haul myself up and lie face upwards across the bars, with my head on one basket, my feet on the other, and my nose almost rubbing the bottom of the coach.
I have, I own, travelled many a mile more comfortably, but few more happily. I had but one terror, and that was short-lived. At the barrier the coach pulled up, and the guard got down to hand in his papers, and to help himself to a spare wrapper out of the boot. Then, with a cheerful "Hi! hi!" he clambered back to his place, the barrier swung open, and we were out of Brest in the open country outside.
Little I cared that the mud plastered my back with a coat as thick as that I had on. Little I cared that the drippings of the coach fell in my mouth and eyes, and the stench of stale straw almost choked me. I was free! The noose on the gallows would remain empty for me. I was so gay I believe I even laughed under the coach.
Presently, however, I began to realise that this security was not to be for ever. When daylight came, or even sooner, should we reach the end of our first stage before, I should be able no longer to hide myself.
It would be wiser to escape half-an-hour too soon than be discovered half-an-hour too late.
So when, some four hours out, I judged by the toiling of the horses we were approaching the summit of a hill, I slipped from my perch, and after running some little way under the boot, cast loose just as the driver cracked his whip and the horses started at a spanking trot down the incline.
It frightened me to find myself standing in the open road and hear the diminishing sounds of the friendly diligence. In front of me I could see the grey break of dawn struggling among the heavy clouds. Behind me swept the rain, buffeting me forward. Somewhere or other I must find shelter from the night.
No sooner had I resolved upon this than the sound of a horse approaching at full gallop sent my teeth chattering in real earnest. I had barely time to dart to the roadside and hide below the hedge when a horseman swept by. By his look he was not a soldier or an ordinary traveller, such as the courier I had seen set out from Brest. I cared little who he was, provided he rode on and let me alone. But till I lost all sound of him I spent an uneasy time in the ditch.
As soon as the August dawn gave me a view, I found myself on the top of a great exposed heath, across which the road reached for a mile or so, and then plunged downwards into a thick wood. Towards this wood I hastened with all the speed I could. Here at least I could lie hid a while till my next chance turned up.
That chance was nearer than I thought. About half-way through the wood the road forked into three, one way on either hand striking deep among the trees; that in the middle holding straight on, and by the marks of wheels being evidently the highroad. I struck to the right some way, and then quitted the road altogether for a glade in the wood which seemed to lead to denser shelter.
I had scarcely left the track when I was startled by the sound of a voice and a groan close by. Had I wanted to retreat I could hardly have done so unseen, but a glance in the direction from which the sound proceeded held me where I was.
A horse stood quietly nibbling the gra.s.s, and on his back, fallen forward, with arms clasping the beast"s neck, and head drooping helplessly downward, was his rider, bleeding from a pistol wound in the neck, and too weak even to disengage his feet from the stirrups. In a single glance I recognised the horseman who had ridden ahead of the coach.
A pistol, evidently dropped from his hand, lay on the gra.s.s, and his hat lay between the horse"s feet.
If life was not already extinct, it was fast ebbing away. I lifted him as gently as I could and laid him on the gra.s.s. He opened his eyes, and his lips moved; but for a moment he seemed choked. I tried with some moss to stanch his still bleeding wound, but the groan he gave as I touched him caused me to desist.
Then he tried to speak something in French.
"What is it?" said I, in English.
A look of quick relief came into his face.
"Ride forward with the letters--for G.o.d"s sake--promise."
Even in the feeble, broken words I could recognise a countryman.
"Yes," said I.
"Horses--at each post--my purse," he gasped.
"I promise I will do as you ask--as I am an Irishman and a Christian."
That seemed to satisfy him.
"Your hand," said he, at last.
I gave it to him, and as it closed on his he groaned, and died.
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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sport in his breast pocket, whence he could easily produce it, the others in his belt. The former described the bearer as John Ca.s.sidy, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sport as possible. In fact, for the rest of this journey I must be John Ca.s.sidy 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.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A RAT-TRAP IN THE RUE D"AGNES.
The worth of my credentials was very soon put to the test; for an hour"s ride brought me to Morlaix, where, as I had learned from a hastily scrawled list of places on the cover of the pa.s.sport, I was to expect my first fresh horse.
Here there was some grumbling at my lateness and wondering as to the cause of it. For the diligence guard had reported that I (or rather he whom I represented) had started ahead of the coach from Brest, and should have pa.s.sed Morlaix three hours in front.
Whereupon I explained that I had been attacked by a highwayman, and obliged to hide in the woods till daylight. At which they laughed, and said if I chose to travel to Paris alone on horseback, instead of journeying as most honest citizens did, I must expect to be shot at.
Then I was ordered into the _conciergerie_ while my pa.s.sport and papers were examined.
It was lucky for me I had put on the dead man"s clothes, and that the description chiefly related to these. As regards personal appearance I was described as young, beardless, with blue eyes, brown hair, and "nothing remarkable," which equally well described me as it did poor John Ca.s.sidy.