“What is it now?” came Héron’s hoarse voice through the darkness.
“It is pitch-dark, citizen,” was the response from ahead. “The drivers cannot see their horses’ ears. They wait to know if they may light their lanterns and then lead their horses.”
“They can lead their horses,” replied Héron roughly, “but I’ll have no lanterns lighted. We don’t know what fools may be lurking behind trees, hoping to put a bullet through my head—or yours, sergeant—we don’t want to make a lighted target of ourselves—what? But let the drivers lead their horses, and one or two of you who are riding greys might dismount too and lead the way—the greys would show up perhaps in this cursed blackness.”
While his orders were being carried out, he called out once more:
“Are we far now from that confounded chapel?”
“We can’t be far, citizen; the whole forest is not more than six leagues wide at any point, and we have gone two since we turned into it.”
“Hush!” Héron’s voice suddenly broke in hoarsely. “What was that? Silence, I say. Damn you—can’t you hear?”
There was a hush—every ear straining to listen; but the horses were not still—they continued to champ their bits, to paw the ground, and to toss their heads, impatient to get on. Only now and again there would come a lull even through these sounds—a second or two, mayhap, of perfect, unbroken silence—and then it seemed as if right through the darkness a mysterious echo sent back those same sounds—the champing of bits, the pawing of soft ground, the tossing and snorting of animals, human life that breathed far out there among the trees.
“It is citizen Chauvelin and his men,” said the sergeant after a while, and speaking in a whisper.
“Silence—I want to hear,” came the curt, hoarsely-whispered command.
Once more everyone listened, the men hardly daring to breathe, clinging to their bridles and pulling on their horses’ mouths, trying to keep them still, and again through the night there came like a faint echo which seemed to throw back those sounds that indicated the presence of men and of horses not very far away.
“Yes, it must be citizen Chauvelin,” said Héron at last; but the tone of his voice sounded as if he were anxious and only half convinced; “but I thought he would be at the château by now.”
“He may have had to go at foot-pace; it is very dark, citizen Héron,” remarked the sergeant.
“En avant, then,” quoth the other; “the sooner we come up with him the better.”
And the squad of mounted men, the two coaches, the drivers and the advance section who were leading their horses slowly restarted on the way. The horses snorted, the bits and stirrups clanged, and the springs and wheels of the coaches creaked and groaned dismally as the ramshackle vehicles began once more to plough the carpet of pine-needles that lay thick upon the road.
But inside the carriage Armand and Marguerite held one another tightly by the hand.
“It is de Batz—with his friends,” she whispered scarce above her breath.
“De Batz?” he asked vaguely and fearfully, for in the dark he could not see her face, and as he did not understand why she should suddenly be talking of de Batz he thought with horror that mayhap her prophecy anent herself had come true, and that her mind—wearied and overwrought—had become suddenly unhinged.
“Yes, de Batz,” she replied. “Percy sent him a message, through me, to meet him—here. I am not mad, Armand,” she added more calmly. “Sir Andrew took Percy’s letter to de Batz the day that we started from Paris.”
“Great God!” exclaimed Armand, and instinctively, with a sense of protection, he put his arms round his sister. “Then, if Chauvelin or the squad is attacked—if—”
“Yes,” she said calmly; “if de Batz makes an attack on Chauvelin, or if he reaches the château first and tries to defend it, they will shoot us … Armand, and Percy.”
“But is the Dauphin at the Château d’Ourde?”
“No, no! I think not.”
“Then why should Percy have invoked the aid of de Batz? Now, when—”
“I don’t know,” she murmured helplessly. “Of course, when he wrote the letter he could not guess that they would hold us as hostages. He may have thought that under cover of darkness and of an unexpected attack he might have saved himself had he been alone; but now—now that you and I are here—Oh! it is all so horrible, and I cannot understand it all.”
“Hark!” broke in Armand, suddenly gripping her arm more tightly.
“Halt!” rang the sergeant’s voice through the night.
This time there was no mistaking the sound; already it came from no far distance. It was the sound of a man running and panting, and now and again calling out as he ran.
For a moment there was stillness in the very air, the wind itself was hushed between two gusts, even the rain had ceased its incessant pattering. Héron’s harsh voice was raised in the stillness.
“What is it now?” he demanded.
“A runner, citizen,” replied the sergeant, “coming through the wood from the right.”
“From the right?” and the exclamation was accompanied by a volley of oaths; “the direction of the château? Chauvelin has been attacked; he is sending a messenger back to me. Sergeant—sergeant, close up round that coach; guard your prisoners as you value your life, and—”
The rest of his words were drowned in a yell of such violent fury that the horses, already over-nervous and fidgety, reared in mad terror, and the men had the greatest difficulty in holding them in. For a few minutes noisy confusion prevailed, until the men could quieten their quivering animals with soft words and gentle pattings.
Then the troopers obeyed, closing up round the coach wherein brother and sister sat huddled against one another.
One of the men said under his breath:
“Ah! but the citizen agent knows how to curse! One day he will break his gullet with the fury of his oaths.”
In the meanwhile the runner had come nearer, always
