In the Day of Adversity

"It is not winter now," the man replied. "Your horse will come to no hurt. And we have no thieves in Bayeux. We send them to the galleys!" and his eye roved over St. Georges as he spoke.

The latter was, however, too wary to start at the hateful word; moreover, since this man had been an overseer of the galleys, it was not strange, perhaps, that the name of the system by which he had once subsisted should rise to his mind. Therefore he replied quietly:

"That is well. Now for my room; but, first, a meal."

As he sat over that meal, a plain enough one as befitted the cabaret in which he was, and partook of it in a squalid room which represented the combined functions of living room for the man and his wife, drinking place for those who patronized the house, and general common room, he saw the fellow still casting long glances at him and regarding him from under his eyelids.

And over and over again he asked himself: "Does he recognise me; and, if so, what will he do?"

Presently the woman – who had been knitting behind a counter at which she sat, superintending the bringing in of his sparse meal, and ordering her husband, whom she addressed as André, to call to the serving maid for one thing after another – left the room to see to "monsieur's appartement." He had said to her he was very tired; he would go to it at once if it was ready, early in the evening as it was.

Then he rose as she disappeared and requested the man to show him where it was, and, when he too rose, followed him upstairs.

It was a poor enough place when he got there, in keeping with the whole of the house – a room in which there was a bed in one corner and a chair in another, and with some washing utensils in a third, but nothing more.

"Call me at daybreak," he said to the man André. "I shall sleep until then if I can. Then I must be on my way to – Paris."

"Si, si," the other replied. "You shall be called," and he went toward the door, though, both there and before, he did not cease to glance furtively at him. These glances had not been unobserved, however, by St. Georges, who in his turn had been equally watching him to see if any absolute recognition appeared to dawn upon him. And now, as the man prepared to depart and leave him alone, he said, speaking as carelessly as possible:

"Well! you thought you knew my face, friend. Have you been able to recall yet where you saw it last?" and he looked him straight in the eyes.

But the other only shook his head, and grumbled out:

"No, no. I cannot remember. Perhaps – it may be – I am mistaken."

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE SNARE

Had St. Georges followed the impulse that first occurred to him when he recognised the man André, he would have made some excuse for not remaining a night in Bayeux, but would have proceeded at once on his journey to Troyes – though not to Paris as he had said, only with a desire to throw dust in his late oppressor's eyes. For to Paris he had no intention of going under any circumstances, deeming it likely to be full of danger to him. There he would be known to countless military men; he might be seen at any moment and recognised; and the result would, in all likelihood, be ruinous. He meant, however, to proceed some distance toward it and then to strike into another road, and so, leaving the capital a little to the north of him, reach Troyes. He thought he could do this by branching off at Evreux and passing through Fontainebleau, but at present he was not even sure that this would be the direction to take – was, indeed, uncertain if such a course would lead him to the goal he sought, though he believed it would.

But the impulse to quit André's auberge had to be resisted at once as soon as it arose – to follow it would be fraught with, possibly, as much danger as remaining there for a night. For if André really suspected who he was, he would not permit him to quit Bayeux – not at least without extorting something from him for his silence – while, if he could not absolutely remember him, his suspicions would be so much aroused by St. Georges's suddenly altered plans as, perhaps, to absolutely verify them, or to cause him to have the stranger denied exit from the city. Therefore, at all hazards, he must remain the intended night. It was the only way in which to avoid aiding the fellow's hazy recollections, which, after all, might not have taken actual form by the next day's dawn. And there was another thing: however much he might overmaster Nature sufficiently to be able to proceed without rest, the horse could not do so. He must, he decided, remain, and trust to chance.

"What a miserable, what an untoward fate is mine!" he murmured; "could Fortune play me worse? Of all men to light on, that it must be this brute – whom, if I could do so in safety, I would slay for his countless cruelties to me and others! It is hard, hard, hard! There are thousands of inns in France to which I might have gone without meeting any who could recognise me, yet at the very first I stumble on I encounter one who knows me, and knows what I have been. A galley slave! – a man doomed for life, while there, to that brutal work; a man who, since he has escaped, is doomed to death. Ah! well! I am in God's hands. As he has protected me before, may he do so again!"

He threw himself upon the bed as he uttered his little prayer – he must sleep at all cost. Even though André should denounce him to-morrow ere he could quit Bayeux – even though he should have to join la chaine again on its road to the galleys – ay! even though the scaffold was to witness his death in the morning, his wornout frame must rest. He had been without sleep for now almost the whole time that had elapsed since Tourville's fleet had first loomed up before the English; it seemed to him that he could scarce recall when he slept last. And what terrible events he had gone through since that time!

Had he tried to keep awake, he could scarce have done so; as it was he made no such effort. Wrapped in the coverlet, the sword unbuckled but grasped in his hand, he stretched his body out and gave himself up to slumber – slumber deep and heavy as that of a drugged man.

He would not have awakened when he did, would have slept on, perhaps, for hours longer, had not a continued deep, droning, noise – interrupted now and again by a shriller one – at last succeeded in thoroughly rousing him – a noise that came as it seemed from below the bed he lay on, and was only interrupted and drowned once by the booming of the cathedral clock striking three. Three! and he had lain down in early evening had slept for hours. Yet how weary he still felt! It was as yet quite dark – the dawn would not come for another hour, he knew – what could those sounds below mean? He raised himself on his elbow to listen and hear more plainly.

At first he could distinguish nothing but the deep hum, broken now and again by the sharper, more metallic sound; but as he bent over the bed – being now quite wide awake and with his senses naturally very acute – he recognised what those sounds were. And more especially was he enabled to do so from the fact that the planks of the floor were not joined very closely together – or had come apart since they were first laid down – as he had observed when he entered the room the day before.

The sounds were André and his wife talking. At this hour of the night, or morning! And gradually, with his senses strained to the utmost, he was enabled to catch almost every word that they uttered.

"But," said the woman, "I like it not. It is treachery —bassesse. And he is beau. Mon Dieu! mais il est beau– "

"Peste!" the man replied. "It is always of les beaux you think. Once 'twas the fisher from Havre, then Le Bic, of the maréchausse, now this one. And why base? The king pays a hundred gold pistoles for such as he. And if not to us, then others will get it. Why not we?"

"You are sure? You are not mistaken?"

"Sure! From the first moment. Though I held my peace. Ho! why frighten the bird away from the nest? At first the hair and mustache puzzled me – then – "

St. Georges started as he heard this. Now he knew of whom they talked.

" – it came back to me. A galérien in the Raquin, a surly dog – one of the worst; one of those who had been gentlemen. Gentlemen! Ma foi! I have made their backs tingle often, often!"

"Ay!" muttered St. Georges between his teeth, "you have! 'Tis true."

"You are certain?" the woman asked again. "A mistake would be terrible – would send you back to the galleys yourself, only as beaten slave – not overseer."

"Certain! So will the others be when he is taken – alive or dead. There on his shoulder, ma belle, they will see proof – the fleur-de-lis. Fortunate for him he was not a religious prisoner, a victim of our holy Church. Otherwise it would have been burnt into his cheek, and he would have been so marked he could not have escaped a day!"

"Will it be alive —or dead?"

"Dead, if he resists, at daybreak, in an hour. Then they will come for him; it is arranged. And take him – doubtless slay him. What matter? The reward is the same. 'Alive or dead,' says the paper – they showed it me at La Poste – 'one hundred gold pistoles.' And the horse will be ours, too."

"How will they do it?"

"Hist! Listen. And get you to bed before they come. You need not be in it. I have arranged it, je te dis."

"But how – how – how?"

"I will awake him, bid him hurry; tell him he is discovered, lost, unless he flies. Then, doubtless, he will rush to the door, and, poof! they will cut him down as he rushes out. I have told them he is violent. They must strike at once. Tu comprends?"

"Yes," and it seemed to the listener as if the woman had answered with a shudder.

"And," the man said again, "the horse will be ours, too. I have not told them of that. No! we shall have that and the pistoles. Now, get you to bed. They will be here ere long. The day is coming. His last on earth if he runs out suddenly or resists."

The listener heard a moment or two later a stealthy tread upon the stairs outside – a tread that passed his door and went on upstairs and was then no more apparent. It was the woman withdrawing from the place where he was to be slain.

To be slain! Possibly. Yet, he determined, not as the man had arranged it. To be slain it might be, but not without a struggle, an attempt for life; without himself slaying others.

He crept to the window after finding that the door had been locked from the outside – no doubt during his long slumber! – and gazed out. It was not yet near daybreak; the miserable street was still in darkness; in no window was there any light – but above in the heavens there was, however, a gray tinge that told of the coming day. Then he looked around.

Beneath the window, which was a common dormer one, as is almost always the case in northern France and the Netherlands, there was nothing but the rain pipe running beneath it along the length of the house. Below was the street full of cobble and other stones – a good thirty feet below! To drop that height, even though hanging by his hands to the rain pipe and thereby diminishing the distance some eight feet would, however, be impossible; it would mean broken ankles and legs and dislocated thigh bones. Yet, what else to do? Behind him was the locked door; in front, through the window, an escape that would leave him mangled and at the mercy of those who were coming to slay him.

Still peering out into the darkness – that was now not all darkness – he saw about six feet to the left of him the mouth of the perpendicular pipe into which the horizontal one emptied itself and which must run down the side of the house. His chance, he thought, was here. Yet if he would avail himself of it he must be quick; the day would come ere long; at any moment those who had been summoned by the landlord must be approaching; he would be discovered.

He fastened his sword to his back with his sash – he could not drag it by his side – then head first he crept out of the window, testing with his right hand the water pipe – for six feet he would have to rely upon that to fend him from destruction, to prevent him from rolling off the roof to death below on the cobblestones! With that right hand pressed against it he could – if it did not give way under the pressure – reach the spout of the upright pipe. As he tried it it seemed strong, securely fastened to the lip of the roof; he might venture.

Face downward, his chest to the sloping roof, of which there was three feet between the sill of the window and the pipe at the edge, he lowered himself – his right hand on the pipe, his left, until obliged to loose it, clinging to the window frame. And at last he was on the roof itself, with the right hand still firmly pressed against that pipe, and the top joints of his left-hand fingers, and even his nails, dug into the rough edges of the tiles. That frail pipe and those tiles were all there was now to save him – nothing else but them between him and destruction! Slowly he thus propelled himself along, feeling every inch of the pipe carefully ere he bore any weight on it, feeling also each tile he touched to see if it was loose or tight. For he knew that one slip – one detached tile, one inch of yielding of the pipe – and he would go with a sudden rush over the sloping precipice to the stones below. And as he dragged himself along, hearing the grating of his body and the scraping of the buttons on his clothes against the roof, he prayed that the man watching below might not hear them also. At last he reached the mouth of the upright pipe, grasped it, and, as before, pressed against it to discover if it was firm – as it proved to be – then drew his body up over it, and gradually prepared to descend by it, feeling with his feet for the continuance of it below.

But, to his horror, there was no such continuance! His legs, hanging down from his groin over the roof – while his body was supported on the wide mouth of the pipe and by his hands being dug into the sides of the tiles, where they were joined to each other – touched nothing but the bare space of the wall. There was no pipe! It was broken off short a foot below the horizontal one, and the wall, he could feel, was damp from the water which had escaped and flowed down from where it was so broken.

He was doomed now, he knew; which doom should he select – to fall below and be crushed and mangled, or return to the room and, refusing to come out, be either done to death or taken prisoner? As he pondered thus in agony, away down the street he heard voices breaking on the morning air, he heard the clank of loosely fastened sabres on the stones – they were coming to take him – to, as André had said, "cut him down." And, scarce knowing what he did, or why in his frenzy he decided thus, he let his body further down into space, and, with his hands grasping the pipe's mouth, swung over that space. And once, ere he let go, which he must do in another moment, for the sides of the spout were cutting into his palms, he twisted his head and glanced down beneath him.

Then as he did so he gave a gasp – almost a cry of relief unspeakable. Beneath him, not two yards below his dangling feet, was the stone roof of the porch or doorway of the inn. The fall to that could not break his legs surely! – he prayed God the sound of it might not disturb the man within, who must be on the alert.

Closing his feet so that both should alight as nearly as possible on the same spot, pressing his body as near to the wall as he could, he let go the spout and dropped.

CHAPTER XXVII.

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 André 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 André 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 André 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 André; 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 – André 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 André 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 galérien, but André 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 piége was his, not ours. He was a fool. But where – where is the galérien? 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, André'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?"