The Launching of Roger Brook

pursuers by an outjutting building on the corner of the Rue de Colombier. Instead of dashing across the open space ahead of him he swivelled round the hairpin bend to his right, almost doubling back on his pursuers. The street he had entered was a narrow one and it was almost blocked by a big, stationary coach.

The coach was facing away from him. A footman, holding a lighted torch, was waiting in the doorway of the house before which the coach stood. Both he and the coachman on the box had their backs turned. It flashed into Roger's mind that the occupant of the coach must have gone into the house, so it would be empty. If only he could get inside it unobserved and remain there for two minutes his pursuers would run past, he would then have a new chance to elude them in the darkness.

He knew that if the lackey turned and saw him the game would be up; but his chest was now paining him so badly that he also knew he could not run another hundred yards. It was a choice of attempting to conceal himself in the empty coach, or of capture.

From fear of attracting the man's attention he dropped into a walk; he had no more than ten paces to cover. In a moment he had reached the offside of the coach. Now that it was between him and the lackey he felt more confident. Seizing the curved door handle he turned it and pulled the door open. To his horror there was a sudden movement in its shadowy interior. It was not empty after all.

The heavy boots of the running soldiers striking against the cobbles could be heard clearly now. The lackey in the doorway turned and lifted his flambeau on high to find out the cause of the approaching clamour. The light from it shone into the coach and Roger could see its occupant plainly.

It was a girl; a girl so young that she still carried a doll, and so could not yet have fully left childhood behind. Yet, all his life long, Roger was to remember the staggering impression her beauty made upon him in that first brief glimpse before he scrambled into the coach and fell panting at her feet.

Her eyes were a bright china blue; her hair, golden and unpowdered, fell in thick, silky ringlets about her small shoulders. She wore no paint but her skin was flawless and her complexion of milk and roses. Her mouth was small and delicately modelled, the upper lip short, the lower a little full. Her nose was thin and of Roman cast; her face oval, ending in a firm, determined chin. She sat bolt upright and so looked taller than she was in fact. Every feature of her face, and her whole attitude, expressed a completely natural imperiousness and absolute right to command immediate obedience to her slightest whim.

'Save me!' gasped Roger. 'They're after me for a killing that I didn't do! I swear I didn't! For God's sake, hide me!'

The clamour at the street corner could now be heard by them both. Voices, amongst which Roger could distinguish Fouche's, were calling: 'Where is he? Which way has he gone?'

As Roger stared up at the girl the light from the torch now lit his face too. She did not appear the least frightened and had made no attempt either to shrink away from him or to cry out. Her arched eyebrows had risen in a little frown, creasing her smooth forehead, but as she saw his face, nearly as young as her own, and gazed straight into his deep blue eyes .fringed by their dark lashes, her hps broke into a smile, showing two rows of white, even teeth.

'What is it to me if you have done a killing?' she laughed suddenly. 'I like your face, so I'll protect you. Quick! Get over there and draw your feet up!'

The cushioned seat opposite, to which she pointed, was both wide and deep, and as on speaking she snatched up a large fur rug, Roger saw that she meant to hide turn under it. Flopping into one corner he pulled in his legs and next moment the fur blanketed his sight but not his hearing.

Two seconds later he caught a loud voice: 'Has a young fellow passed this way? He wore a blue coat, and would be running!'

The inquiry was evidently addressed to the lackey with the torch, and the voice hurried on: 'What of the coach? If 'tis empty he may have hopped inside it while your back was turned. With your leave I'll ascertain.'

As the near door was pulled open the girl's high treble came: swift, haughty, dominating: 'Hands off my coach, villain! How darest thou push past my lackey to have speech with me! I have seen no fugitive. Close that door instantly and get about thy business!'

With a muttered apology the man closed the door, but the high childish voice went on now, evidently calling to the footmen. 'Up on thy stand, Pierrel I've a mind to get home and will not wait for Madame Velot. The coach can return to pick her up later.'

Then, unseen by Roger, she gave a violent jerk to a silk cord attached to the coachman's little finger and, as he lifted the hatch in the roof of the coach, trilled up at him: 'A I'hotel, Baptiste! Depeche- toi!'

The footman sprang up on his stand at the back of the coach, the coachman shook the reins of his horses, and the great cumbersome vehicle rumbled into motion. It had not covered twenty yards before the girl pulled the rug from off Roger and said: 'You can sit up now, and tell me about yourself.'

On his jerking his feet from the seat one of them struck a dark object in a far corner of the foot space, near the door opposite to that by which he had entered. The object gave a little bark of protest and, until that moment, owing to the deep shadows, he had not realised that a dog was lying there. As it reared up he saw that it was a black poodle.

'Down, Bougie! Down!' cried its young mistress. 'Quiet now, or I will order the Englishman to eat youl'

For a second Roger thought that she was referring to him, and stared at her in astonishment, wondering how she could possibly have guessed his nationality so quickly. But at that moment they were passing a street corner lantern and she held up her doll for him to see, as she said:

'This is my Englishman. Is he not hideous? And the English do eat dogs, you know. My uncle, the Count, commanded the last expedition that we sent to aid Monsieur de la Fayette in the Americas and he told me so on his return. They are a most bloodthirsty and barbarous people.'

The doll was certainly a fearsome monstrosity. It differed only from the later caricature of John Bull in having a cocked hat instead of a squat topper. A Union Jack waistcoat covered its great protruding paunch, its forehead was so low as to be almost entirely lacking and a most alarming row of upper teeth protruded from its gaping jaws.

Roger was about to repudiate the charge indignantly, when he thought better of it. Since he was now being hunted for murder and his young protectress believed all Englishmen to be bloodthirsty by nature, to disclose that he was one himself might easily throw her into such a panic that she would abandon him and turn him over to his enemies.

'Weill Tell me of yourself!' she demanded. 'I am all agog to hear about this killing of which you are accused. What is your name?'

Had Roger but known it the fate of nations hung upon his reply; and the simple fact that a young French girl, although already budding into glorious womanhood, was still sufficiently amused by dolls to carry one, was in a few years' time to have immeasurably far-reaching effects on European politics. Had it been otherwise he would have told the truth about himself and given his real name. As it was, he decided to stick to the story to which he was now well accustomed through his journeying with old Aristotle Fenelon these past two months, and he replied:

'My name is Roje Breuc, and I am a native of Alsace. I ran away from my home in Strasbourg to seek adventure early last July. I have since been following the road with a journeyman-doctor whom I met with in Le Havre.' He then went on to describe the Doctor's murder that evening and how a rascally teacher, named Joseph Fouche, who acted as an informer to the police, was attempting to pin the murder on to him.

The coach had meanwhile crossed the river Vilaine by the single bridge in the centre of the town, passed the Cathedral of St. Pierre and entered the Rue St. Louis. Halfway along the street it halted, until at the shouts of the footmen a pair of great gates in a high wall were thrown open, so that it could drive into a spacious courtyard.

Roger just had time to say: 'May I know the name of the beautiful young lady to whom I owe my life?' when the coach pulled up before a broad flight of steps leading up to a heavily carved pair of double doors.

'I am Athenais de Rochambeau,' the girl replied, 'and this is the H6tel de Rochambeau, the town house of my father, the Marquis.'

On the footman opening the door Roger sprang out and handed her down. The double doors of the mansion had now been opened and, going up the steps together, they entered a wide, lofty hall. It was paved with marble, and a splendid horseshoe staircase of elaborate iron scrollwork, picked out with gold, led to a landing, then divided