"You are not well?" she said suddenly. "It is your old wound, Monsieur."
"Yes, Mademoiselle," I muttered faintly. "It is my old wound."
"I will call Clon!" she cried impetuously. And then, with a sob, "Ah! poor Clon! He is gone. But there is Louis. I will call him, and he will get you something."
She was gone from the room before I could stop her; and I was left leaning against the table, possessor at last of the great secret which I had come so far to win. Possessor of that secret, and able in a moment to open the door, and go out into the night, and make use of it--and yet the most unhappy of men. The sweat stood on my brow, my eyes wandered round the room; I even turned towards the door, with some mad thought of flight--flight from her, from the house, from everything. And God knows if I might not have chosen that course; for I still stood doubting, when on the door, that door, there came a sudden hurried knocking which jarred every nerve in my body. I started. I stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at the door, as at a ghost. Then glad of action, glad of anything that might relieve the tension of my feelings, I strode to it, and pulled it sharply open.
On the threshold, his flushed face lit up by the light behind me, stood one of the knaves I had brought with me to Auch. He had been running, and panted heavily, but he had kept his wits. He grasped my sleeve instantly. "Ah! Monsieur, the very man!" he cried, tugging at me. "Quick! come this instant, and you may yet be first. They have the secret. They have found Monsieur."
"Found whom?" I echoed. "M. de Cocheforêt?"
"No; but the place where he lies. It was found by accident. The lieutenant was gathering his men to go to it when I came away. If we are quick, we may be there first."
"But the place?" I said.
"I could not hear where it was," he answered bluntly. "We can hang on their skirts, and at the last moment strike in."
The pair of pistols I had taken from the shock-headed man lay on a chest by the door. I snatched them up, and my hat, and joined him without another word; and in a moment we were running down the garden. I looked back once before we passed the gate, and I saw the light streaming out through the door which I had left open; and I fancied that for an instant a figure darkened the gap. But the fancy only strengthened the one single iron purpose which had taken possession of me and all my thoughts. I must be first. I must anticipate the lieutenant, and make the arrest myself. I ran on only the faster.
We seemed to be across the meadow and in the wood in a moment. There, instead of keeping along the common path, I boldly singled out--my senses seemed preternaturally keen--the smaller track by which Clon had brought us, and ran unfaltering along it, avoiding logs and pitfalls as by instinct, and following all its turns and twists, until it brought us to the back of the inn, and we could hear the murmur of subdued voices in the village street, the sharp low words of command, and even the clink of weapons; and could see, above and between the houses, the dull glare of lanthorns and torches.
I grasped my man's arm and crouched down, listening. "Where is your mate?" I said, in his ear.
"With them," he muttered.
"Then come," I whispered, rising. "I have seen enough. Let us go."
But he caught me by the arm and detained me. "You don't know the way!" he hissed. "Steady, steady, Monsieur. You go too fast. They are just moving. Let us join them, and strike in when the time comes. We must let them guide us."
"Fool!" I said, shaking off his hand. "I tell you, I know where he is! I know where they are going. Come; lose not a moment, and we will pluck the fruit while they are on the road to it."
His only answer was an exclamation of surprise; at that moment the lights began to move. The lieutenant was starting. The moon was not yet up; the sky was grey and cloudy; to advance where we were was to step into a wall of blackness. But we had lost too much time already, and I did not hesitate. Bidding my companion follow me, and use his legs, I sprang through a low fence which rose before us, and stumbling blindly over some broken ground in the rear of the houses, came, with a fall or two, to a little watercourse with steep sides. Through this I plunged recklessly, and up the farther side, and, breathless and panting, gained the road just beyond the village, and fifty yards in advance of the lieutenant's troop.
They had only two lanthorns burning now, and we were beyond the circle of light these cast; while the steady tramp of so many footsteps covered the noise we made. We were unnoticed. In a twinkling we turned our backs, and as fast as we could ran down the road. Fortunately, they were thinking more of secrecy than speed, and in a minute we had doubled the distance between us; in two minutes their lights were mere sparks shining in the gloom behind us. We lost, at last, even the tramp of their feet. Then I began to look out and go more slowly; peering into the shadows on either side for the fern-stack.
On one hand the hill rose steeply; on the other it fell away to the stream. On neither side was close wood,--or my difficulties had been immensely increased,--but scattered oak-trees stood here and there among gorse and bracken. This helped me, and in a moment, on the upper side, I came upon the dense substance of the stack looming black against the lighter hill.
My heart beat fast, but it was no time for thought. Bidding the man in a whisper to follow me and be ready to back me up, I climbed the bank softly, and with a pistol in my hand, felt my way to the rear of the stack; thinking to find a hut there, set against the fern, and M. de Cocheforêt in it. But I found no hut. There was none; and all was so dark that it came upon me suddenly as I stood between the hill and the stack that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The hut behind the fern-stack? But how far behind? How far from it? The dark slope stretched above us, infinite, immeasurable, shrouded in night. To begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut, probably well-hidden and hard to find in daylight, seemed a task as impossible as to meet with the needle in the hay! And now, while I stood, chilled and doubting, the steps of the troop in the road began to grow audible, began to come nearer.
"Well, M. le Capitaine?" the man beside me muttered--in wonder why I stood. "Which way? Or they will be before us yet."
I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider where the hut would be; while the wind sighed through the oaks, and here and there I could hear an acorn fall. But the thing pressed too close on me: my thoughts would not be hurried, and at last I said at a venture, "Up the hill! Straight from the stack."
He did not demur, and we plunged at the ascent, knee deep in bracken and furze, sweating at every pore with our exertions, and hearing the troop come every moment nearer on the road below. Doubtless they knew exactly whither to go! Forced to stop and take breath when we had scrambled up fifty yards or so, I saw their lanthorns shining like moving glow-worms; and could even hear the clink of steel. For all I could tell, the hut might be down there, and we two be moving from it! But it was too late to go back now; they were close to the fern-stack: and in despair I turned to the hill again. A dozen steps, and I stumbled. I rose and plunged on again; again I stumbled. Then I found that I was no longer ascending. I was treading level earth. And--was it water I saw before me, below me, a little in front of my feet, or some mirage of the sky?
Neither; and I gripped my fellow's arm, as he came abreast of me, and stopped him sharply. Below us, in the centre of a steep hollow, a pit in the hill-side, a light shone out through some aperture and quivered on the mist, like the pale lamp of a moorland hobgoblin. It made itself visible, displaying nothing else; a wisp of light in the bottom of a black bowl.
Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight of it, for I knew that I had stumbled on the place I sought. In the common run of things I should have weighed my next step carefully, and gone about it slowly. But here was no place for thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down the side of