His opponent stamped his foot upon the ground, and laid his hand upon a pistol in his belt, fingering the hammer of the lock in a very ominous manner; but the Count once more interposed, anxious on many accounts to prevent a collision.
"Come," he said, "I wish to do you no injury. Let us compromise the matter. Set the party you have taken free, and doubtless they will abandon to your care and guidance all the baggage and money that they may possess. What say you, Monsieur Pelisson?"
"Willingly, willingly," cried Pelisson, to whom all the last words spoken had been a relief.
"Willingly, willingly," cried the Abbé de St. Helie; the tears which had been streaming from fear changing suddenly into the tears of joy, and flowing on as rapidly as ever. Their enemy, however, seemed still to hesitate; but the taller man, whom we have before seen exercising some influence over him, pulled him by the sleeve once more, and whispered to him eagerly for a brief space. He listened to him for an instant, partly turning away his head, then shook himself pettishly free from his grasp, saying, "Well, I suppose it must be so. I will set them free now; but a day of reckoning will come, if they take not a warning from what has passed. Gather all those things together, my men. Each one take something, and let us be off as fast as we can. Stand to your arms, though; stand to your arms, some of you. Those fellows are coming devilish near, and may find their way up here."
"They shall not injure you," said the Count. "I break no engagements, even when only implied."
At that moment, however, the Abbé de St. Helie, having sufficiently recovered from the terror into which he had been cast to give some thought to what he was about, exclaimed aloud, "But the King's commission--the King's commission! They must not take that;" and rushing towards the baggage he seized a white leather bag, which seemed to contain some especial treasure; but scarcely had he got it in his hand when the chief of their captors snatched it violently from him, and dashed it into the midst of the fire, where he set his foot upon it, as if to insure that it should be burnt, even at the risk of injuring himself.
Albert de Morseiul was an officer in the King's service, and had been brought up in his youth with high notions of devoted loyalty and reverence for the royal authority, which even the free spirit of the reformed religion which he professed had not been able to diminish. The insult offered to the monarch's commission then struck him with indignation; and, starting forward, he grasped the man who would have destroyed it by the chest, exclaiming, "Sir, would you insult the King himself?"
The man replied not, but strove to keep down his foot upon the packet. The young Count, however, was as powerful in frame as himself, and considerably taller; and, after a momentary struggle, he cast him back, while the Abbé de St. Helie snatched the packet from the flames.
What would have been the result of this strife, in which both the robber's blood and that of the young Count were heated, would be difficult to say, for the man had drawn the pistol from his belt, and the click of the lock was plainly heard as he cocked it; but just at that minute the men who had been engaged in stripping the trunk mails of their contents, caught a sight of a party of horsemen coming up the road; and gathering every thing that was most valuable together, they retreated quickly around their leader. Abandoning his contention with the Count, he now promptly formed them into line, collected all the various articles belonging to themselves which were scattered about, and retreated in the direction of the opposite road, offering a firm face of five men abreast, with their carbines cocked, and levelled to the horsemen, who were now coming up thick into the open space where all these events had passed.
At the head of the horsemen appeared the Chevalier d'Evran, armed in haste to deliver or avenge his friend; but, as the Count saw that he was now master of the field, and that the robbers were retreating in a very threatening attitude, which might produce bloodshed if they were not immediately shown that no molestation would be offered to them, he took a rapid step or two forward, exclaiming to his own party,--
"Halt, halt! We have come to a compromise before you arrived, and are all at liberty. Thanks, Louis, a thousand thanks, however, for your succour!"
The Count's men paused promptly at his command, and the robbers retreated slowly up the other road, facing round every ten or twelve steps, fully prepared for defence, like an old lion pursued by the hunters. In the mean while the Chevalier sprung from his horse, and grasped his friend's hand eagerly.
"Why, Albert," he exclaimed, "Albert, this would never do! You who, though one of the rashest officers in the service, had escaped balls and pikes, and bayonets and sabres, to run the risk of being killed by a ditch-fighting freebooter, within a mile or two of your own hearth! Why, when that rascal Jerome there came and told me, I thought I should have gone mad; but I was determined to ride the rascals down like wolves, if I found they had injured you."
"Oh, no," replied the Count, "they showed no inclination to injure me; and, indeed, it would appear, as far as I am concerned, that the whole matter was a mistake, for to me they were very respectful. In truth, I seemed to be in wonderful favour with them, and my only difficulty was in saving M. Pelisson and this reverend gentleman here. But, notwithstanding these worthy men's reverence for myself, I must set to work to put this down as soon as ever I come back from Poitiers."
"I am sure, Monsieur le Comte," said the Abbé de St. Helie, "we owe you every thing this night, and your conduct shall never be blotted out from our grateful remembrance."
The Count bowed low, but somewhat stiffly; then, shaking Pelisson by the hand, he said, "I am happy to have been of any service to you both, gentlemen. My good friend, Monsieur Pelisson, I trust that you will not be any the worse for this short, though unpleasant, sojourn in the forest. I will not ask you and your friend to return and stop awhile at the château of Morseiul, as in all probability Monsieur de St. Helie might not relish abiding under the roof of a heretic. But besides that," he added with a smile, "besides that, in regard to which of course I speak in jest, I doubt not you are anxious to proceed. Morseiul is out of your way, and in an hour and a half you will reach the auberge of Quatremoulins."
"But, sir, shall we be safe, shall we be safe?" exclaimed the Abbé de St. Helie, who was now examining the vehicle in which they had been travelling with anxious eyes. "Gracious God!" he exclaimed, ere the Count could answer, "look! there is a ball which has gone through the carriage within an inch of my head!"
The Count de Morseiul looked at the Chevalier, and they both laughed.
"There is a proverb in England, my good Abbé," said the Chevalier, "that a miss is as good as a mile; but if you will take my advice you will plant yourself just in the same spot again, or put your valise to raise you just opposite the shot-hole, for there are a thousand chances to one that, if you are shot at a thousand times, no bullet ever comes there again."
The Abbé did not seem much to like the pleasantry, for in his mind the subject was far too serious a one to admit of a joke; and the Count de Morseiul replied to his former question,--"Depend upon it you are in perfect safety. But to make that more sure, the Chevalier and I will return to Morseiul with only one or two attendants, and send the rest of my men to escort you to the inn. However, gentlemen, if you will take my advice, you will not travel by night any more when you are in this part of the country; for, from what that fellow said, I should suppose the peasantry have got some evil notion of your intended proceedings here, and it might be dangerous to trust yourselves with them too much. There are such things, you must remember, as shooting from behind hedges, and from the tops of banks; and you must not forget that, in this part of the world, where our lanes are cut deep down between the fields, our orchards thick, and our woods many, it is no easy matter to ascertain where there is an enemy. As I take it for granted you are going towards Poitiers, Monsieur Pelisson, I shall most likely see you soon again. We will all accompany you out of the wood, and then you shall have a sufficient escort to ensure your safety."
Pelisson