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Count Hannibal

Page 188

The Countess took one pace forward, as if she would have followed him, as

if she would have tried further persuasion. But as she moved a cry

rooted her to the spot. A rush of feet and the babel of many voices

filled the passage with a tide of sound, which drew rapidly nearer. The

escape was known! Would the fugitives have time to slip out below?

Some one knocked at the door, tried it, pushed and beat on it. But the

Countess and all in the room had run to the windows and were looking out.

If the two had not yet made their escape they must be taken. Yet no; as

the Countess leaned from the window, first one dusty figure and then a

second darted from a door below, and made for the nearest turning, out of

the Place Ste.-Croix. Before they gained it, four men, of whom, Badelon,

his grey locks flying, was first, dashed out in pursuit, and the street

rang with cries of "Stop him! Seize him! Seize him!" Some one--one of

the pursuers or another--to add to the alarm let off a musket, and in a

moment, as if the report had been a signal, the Place was in a hubbub,

people flocked into it with mysterious quickness, and from a neighbouring

roof--whence, precisely, it was impossible to say--the crackling fire of

a dozen arquebuses alarmed the city far and wide.

Unfortunately, the fugitives had been baulked at the first turning.

Making for a second, they found it choked, and, swerving, darted across

the Place towards St.-Maurice, seeking to lose themselves in the

gathering crowd. But the pursuers clung desperately to their skirts,

overturning here a man and there a child; and then in a twinkling,

Tignonville, as he ran round a booth, tripped over a peg and fell, and La

Tribe stumbled over him and fell also. The four riders flung themselves

fiercely on their prey, secured them, and began to drag them with oaths

and curses towards the door of the inn.

The Countess had seen all from her window; had held her breath while they

ran, had drawn it sharply when they fell. Now, "They have them!" she

muttered, a sob choking her, "they have them!" And she clasped her

hands. If he had followed her advice! If he had only followed her

advice!

But the issue proved less certain than she deemed it. The crowd, which

grew each moment, knew nothing of pursuers or pursued. On the contrary,

a cry went up that the riders were Huguenots, and that the Huguenots were

rising and slaying the Catholics; and as no story was too improbable for

those days, and this was one constantly set about, first one stone flew,

and then another, and another. A man with a staff darted forward and

struck Badelon on the shoulder, two or three others pressed in and

jostled the riders; and if three of Tavannes' following had not run out

on the instant and faced the mob with their pikes, and for a moment

forced them to give back, the prisoners would have been rescued at the

very door of the inn. As it was they were dragged in, and the gates were

flung to and barred in the nick of time. Another moment, almost another

second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a hail of stones poured

on the front of the inn, and amid the rising yells of the rabble there

presently floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of the great

bell of St.-Maurice.

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