In an instant Garin had leapt to the ground and with the others crowding about him, their bridles over their arms and their horses in a bunch behind them, he was bending under the dripping hedge to examine the body that lay supine in the sodden road. A vigorous oath escaped him when he a.s.sured himself that it was indeed La Boulaye.
"Is he dead?" cried the men in chorus.
"No--not dead" grumbled the corporal. "But there is a lump on his brow the size of an egg, and G.o.d knows how long he has been lying here in this bed of mud."
They had no restoratives, and the only thing was to convey him to the nearest habitation and demand shelter. They held a short council on the matter, and in the end Garin bade four of them take him up and carry him in a cloak. Some two miles back they had pa.s.sed a house, and thither the corporal now bade them retrace their steps. They made an odd procession; first went two mounted troopers leading the horses of the others, then the four on foot, carrying the Deputy in a cloak, and lastly, Garin riding in the rear.
In this manner they went back along the dark road, and for close upon a half-hour--for their progress was slow--they trudged along in silence.
At last there was a short exclamation from one of the riders, as half a mile away an illuminated window beamed invitingly. Encouraged by it, they quickened their steps a little. But almost at the same time La Boulaye stirred on the cloak, and the men who carried him heard him speak. At first it was an incoherent mutter, then his words came more distinctly.
"Hold! Where are you carrying me? Who the devil are you?"
It was Garin"s voice that came instantly to rea.s.sure him. Caron essayed to sit up, but finding it impracticable, he shortly bade his men set him down. They halted. Garin dismounted and came to the Deputy"s side, and it was found that his condition was none so grave after all, for he was able to stand unaided. When, however, he attempted to walk, he reeled, and would of a certainty have fallen, but that Garin put out his arm to support him.
"Steady there, Citizen," the corporal admonished him.
"Get my horse!" he commanded briefly.
"But, name of a name! you are not fit to ride," Garin protested.
La Boulaye, however, would listen to no reason. With the recovery of his faculties came the consideration of how miserably Suzanne had duped him, and of how she had dealt with him when he had overtaken her. He burned now to be avenged, and at all costs he would ride after and recapture her. He announced, therefore, to the corporal that they must push on to Liege. Garin gasped at his obstinacy, and would have sought to have dissuaded him, but that La Boulaye turned on him with a fierceness that silenced his expostulations.
It was left to Nature to enforce what Garin could not achieve. When La Boulaye came to attempt to mount he found it impossible. He was stiff and numb from his long exposure in the rain, and when he moved with any vigour his head swam dizzily and throbbed with pain.
At last he was forced to realise--with inward girding--that he must relinquish his determination, and he acknowledged himself ready to take the corporal"s advice and make for the house whose lighted window shone like a beacon in the darkness that had descended. He even allowed them to prevail upon him to lie down in the cloak again, and thus they carried him the remainder of the way. In his heart he still bore the hope that short rest, restoratives, and fresh clothes would fit him for the pursuit once more, and that if he set out within the next few hours he might yet come up with Mademoiselle before she had pa.s.sed beyond his reach. Should the morning still find him unequal to the task of going after her, he would despatch Garin and his men.
At last they reached the cottage--it was little more--and Garin rapped on the door with his whip. It was opened by a woman, who told them, in answer to the corporal"s request for shelter, that her husband was from home, and that she had no accommodation for them. It would seem that the woman had housed soldiers of the Republic before, and that her experiences had not been of a nature calculated to encourage her in the practice. But La Boulaye now staggered forward and promised her generous payment if she would receive them.
"Payment?" she cried. "In worthless a.s.signats that n.o.body will take from me. I know the ways of you."
"Not in a.s.signats," La Boulaye promised her, "but in coin."
And having mollified her somewhat with that a.s.surance, he proceeded to urge her to admit them. Yonder was a shed where the horses could be stabled for the night. But still the woman demurred.
"I lack the room," she said, with some firmness.
"But at least," put in Garin, "you could house the Citizen here. He has been hurt, and he is scarcely able to stand. Come, woman, if you will consent to that, we others can lie with the horses in the shed."
This in the end they gained by renewed promises of good payment. She brewed a broth for them, and for La Boulaye she found a suit of her absent husband"s clothes, whilst his own wet garments were spread to dry before the fire. Some brandy, too, she found and brought him, and the draught did much to restore him.
When they had supped, Garin and the troopers withdrew to the outhouse, leaving La Boulaye in sole possession of the cottage hearth. And there, in a suit of the absent farmer"s grey homespun, his legs encased in coa.r.s.e woollen stockings and sabots upon his feet, sat the young Deputy alone with his unpleasant thoughts. The woman had brought him a pipe, and, although the habit was foreign to him as a rule, he had lighted it and found the smoking somewhat soothing. Ruefully he pa.s.sed his hand across his bandaged brow, and in pondering over all that had taken place since yesternight at Boisvert, his cheeks grew flushed at once with anger and with shame.
"To have been so duped!"
And now--his mind growing clearer as he recovered in vigour--it occurred to him that by to-morrow it would be too late to give pursuit. Once she crossed the Sambre at Liege, or elsewhere, who could tell him by what road she would elect to continue her journey? He had not sufficient men at his disposal to send out parties along each of the possible roads.
That her ultimate destination was Treves he knew. But once there she was beyond his reach, at safety from the talons of the French Republic.
He sat on and thought, what time his brows came closer together and his teeth fastened viciously upon the stem of the pipe. By the table sat the woman, knitting industriously, and ever and anon glancing inquiry at her stern, thoughtful guest, and the click of her needles was the only sound that disturbed the stillness of the room. Outside the wind was wailing like the d.a.m.ned, and the rain which had recommenced with new vigour, rattled noisily upon the panes.
Suddenly above the din of the elements a shout sounded in the night. The Deputy raised his head, and glanced towards the woman. A moment later they heard the gate creak, and steps upon the path that led to the cottage door.
"Your husband?" inquired La Boulaye.
"No, monsieur. He has gone to Liege, and will not return until to-morrow. I do not know who it can be."
There was alarm on her face, which La Boulaye now set himself to allay.
"At least you are well protected, Citoyenne. My men are close at hand, and we can summon them if there be the need."
Rea.s.sured she rose, and at the same moment a knock sounded on the door.
She went to open it, and from his seat by the hearth La Boulaye heard a gentle, mincing voice that was oddly familiar to him.
"Madame," it said, "we are two poor, lost wayfarers, and we crave shelter for the night. We will pay you handsomely."
"I am desolated that I have no room, Messieur," she answered, with courteous firmness.
"Pardi!" interpolated another voice. "We need no room. A bundle of straw and a corner is all we seek. Of your charity, Madame, is this a night on which to leave a dog out of doors?"
A light of recollection leaped suddenly to La Boulaye"s eyes, and with a sudden gasp he stooped to the hearth.
"But I cannot, Messieurs," the woman was saying, when the second voice interrupted her.
"I see your husband by the fire, Madame. Let us hear what he has to say."
The woman coloured to the roots of her hair. She stepped back a pace, and was about to answer them when, chancing to glance in La Boulaye"s direction, she paused. He had risen, and was standing with his back to the fire. There was a black smudge across his face, which seemed to act as a mask, and his dark eyes glowed with an intensity of meaning which arrested her attention, and silenced the answer which was rising to her lips.
In the brief pause the new-comers had crossed the threshold, and stood within the rustic chamber. The first of these was he whose gentle voice La Boulaye had recognised--old M. des Cadoux, the friend of the Marquis de Bellecour. His companion, to the Deputy"s vast surprise, was none other than the bearded courier who had that morning delivered him at Boisvert the letter from Robespierre. What did these two together, and upon such manifest terms of equality? That, it should be his business to discover.
"Come in, Messieurs," he bade them, a.s.suming the role of host. "We are unused to strangers, and Mathilde there is timid of robbers. Draw near the fire and dry yourselves. We will do the best we can for you. We are poor people, Messieurs; very poor."
"I have already said that we will pay you handsomely my friend," quoth Des Cadoux, coming forward with his companion. "Do your best for us and you shall not regret it. Have you aught to eat in the house?"
The woman was standing by the wall, her face expressing bewilderment and suspicion. Suspicious she was, yet that glance of La Boulaye"s had ruled her strangely, and she was content to now await developments.
"We will see what we can do," answered La Boulaye, as he made room for them by the hearth. "Come, Mathilde, let us try what the larder will yield."
"I am afraid that Madame still mistrusts us," deplored Des Cadoux.
La Boulaye laughed for answer as he gently but firmly drew her towards the door leading to the interior of the house. He held it for her to pa.s.s, what time his eyes were set in an intent but puzzled glance upon the courier. There was something about the man that was not wholly strange to La Boulaye. That morning, when he had spoken in the gruff accents of one of the rabble, no suspicion had entered the Deputy"s mind that he was other than he seemed, for all that he now recalled how Tardivet had found the fellow"s patriotism a little too patriotic. Now that he spoke in the voice that was naturally usual to him, it seemed to La Boulaye that it contained a note that he had heard before.
Still puzzled, he pa.s.sed out of the room to be questioned sharply by the woman of the house touching his motives for pa.s.sing himself off as her husband and inviting the new-comers to enter.
"I promise you their stay will be a very brief one," he answered. "I have suspicions to verify the ends to serve, as you shall see. Will you do me the favour to go out by the back and call my men? Tell the corporal to make his way to the front of the house, and to hold himself in readiness to enter the moment I call him."
"What are you about to do?" she asked and the face, as he saw it by the light of the candle she held, wore an expression of sullen disapproval.
He rea.s.sured her that there would be no bloodshed, and suggested that the men were dangerous characters whom it might be ill for her to entertain. And so at last he won his way, and she went to do his errand, whilst he reentered the kitchen.
He found Des Cadoux by the fire, intent upon drying as much of himself as possible. The younger man had seized upon the bottle of brandy that had been left on the table, and was in the act of filling himself a second gla.s.s. Nothing could be further from the mind of either than a suspicion of the ident.i.ty of this rustically-clad and grimy-faced fellow.