Count Hannibal

The sweat stood on his brow as he paused under the low arch of the alley-

end, tasting the bitter forlornness of the dog banned and set for death

in that sunlit city. In every window of the gable end which faced his

hiding-place he fancied an eye watching his movements; in every distant

step he heard the footfall of doom coming that way to his discovery. And

while he trembled, he had to reflect, to think, to form some plan.

In the town was no place for him, and short of the open country no

safety. And how could he gain the open country? If he succeeded in

reaching one of the gates--St. Antoine, or St. Denis, in itself a task of

difficulty--it would only be to find the gate closed, and the guard on

the alert. At last it flashed on him that he might cross the river; and

at the notion hope awoke. It was possible that the massacre had not

extended to the southern suburb; possible, that if it had, the Huguenots

who lay there--Frontenay, and Montgomery, and Chartres, with the men of

the North--might be strong enough to check it, and even to turn the

tables on the Parisians.

His colour returned. He was no coward, as soldiers go; if it came to

fighting he had courage enough. He could not hope to cross the river by

the bridge, for there, where the goldsmiths lived, the mob were like to

be most busy. But if he could reach the bank he might procure a boat at

some deserted point, or, at the worst, he might swim across.

From the Louvre at his back came the sound of gunshots; from every

quarter the murmur of distant crowds, or the faint lamentable cries of

victims. But the empty street before him promised an easy passage, and

he ventured into it and passed quickly through it. He met no one, and no

one molested him; but as he went he had glimpses of pale faces that from

behind the casements watched him come and turned to watch him go; and so

heavy on his nerves was the pressure of this silent ominous attention,

that he blundered at the end of the street. He should have taken the

southerly turning; instead he held on, found himself in the Rue

Ferronerie, and a moment later was all but in the arms of a band of city

guards, who were making a house-to-house visitation.

He owed his safety rather to the condition of the street than to his

presence of mind. The Rue Ferronerie, narrow in itself, was so choked at

this date by stalls and bulkheads, that an edict directing the removal of

those which abutted on the cemetery had been issued a little before.

Nothing had been done on it, however, and this neck of Paris, this main

thoroughfare between the east and the west, between the fashionable

quarter of the Marais and the fashionable quarter of the Louvre, was

still a devious huddle of sheds and pent-houses. Tignonville slid behind

one of these, found that it masked the mouth of an alley, and, heedless

whither the passage led, ran hurriedly along it. Every instant he

expected to hear the hue and cry behind him, and he did not halt or draw

breath until he had left the soldiers far in the rear, and found himself

astray at the junction of four noisome lanes, over two of which the

projecting gables fairly met. Above the two others a scrap of sky

appeared, but this was too small to indicate in which direction the river

lay.