overcome the stitch, he stared round for the dwelling of the man who had brought the straw: no cottage, no dwelling-house at all, only stark walls soaring up on all three sides, and no way out. In a few moments, when they missed him ahead, his refuge would become a hopeless trap; and the fog was growing patchy as a small breeze wafted it to and fro.
The stitch was gone. He moved to the paling, but already here were two men running back. He shrank down among the nettles, his pistol in his hand, a very wicked look on his face. They passed. He slipped out and ran directly after them, going free and fine, a bounding step. He passed a barefoot staring boy: the corner could not be far. But there were running steps, a single man, behind, and though now he ran at his greatest speed, even at the risk of overtaking those in front, the steps ran faster still. Closer, closer, and he could hear the panting breath: he could feel the pointing pistol. Closer still and the man was abreast, an Indian, a half-caste glancing sideways, a questioning dark face he had never seen, and here was the corner showing through the fog. 'Vite, vite,' cried Stephen in a gasping croak, 'a gauche. Tu l'attraperas.'
The man nodded, sped on, turned the corner at a shocking speed: the fog swallowed him. Stephen bore right and left and here was the coach again: still no light in Andrews's house, and cries behind him and in front, for one group had made the whole circuit. The coach doors still hung open, not a man there but the driver, dim in his box. Calling out 'Allez, allez,' Stephen ran to the coach, slammed the near door, sprang on to the box, clapped his cocked pistol to the coachman's head and said, 'Fouette'. The coachman changed colour, gathered his reins, cried 'Arre' and cracked his whip. The horses lunged forward, the coach moved off, faster, faster and faster. 'Fouette, fouette,' said Stephen, and the coachman plied his whip. The first group of men, tall Pontet-Canet with them, appeared ahead, stringing out across the road as they grasped the situation. 'Fouette toujours,' said Stephen, grinding the pistol into the coachman's neck. They drove straight through the line and here was the side-road that led to the broad main street.
'A gauche. A gauche, je te dis.' The coachman reined in to take the corner: the pursuers gained. The coach was round, rocking wildly on its springs; the broad street was just ahead.
'A droite,' said Stephen, for the right-hand turn would take them fast away, galloping down the good road to the harbour. The coachman half-stood to heave upon the reins and swing his horses round: the pistol shifted as Stephen braced himself for the turn, and with a furious heave of his loins the coachman jerked him off.
He was up like a cat before the coachman could stop his team, before Pontet-Canet and his men were more than a vague dark mass coming towards him. He ran up the street, away from the coach: but he could not run much more - his head had hit the kerb and his feet were straying wild - and there was shouting in the fog ahead. Here was Franchon's hotel, and here, better than any public door with the Frenchmen so hot for blood, was the workmen's rope dangling from the balcony. Hand over hand he went up it, not indeed like a topman laying aloft but like a lithe dangerous wild beast trying one last ruse before turning on its equally dangerous and more numerous enemies: the balcony railing, and he was over, crouching there with his breath coming in enormous gasps, his heart beating as though it filled his breast, his eyes unable to focus clear.
He heard French voices below arguing about the way to take. 'He may have gone in here.' It would not be long before they saw the rope.
His breath was coming easier now, and he could see. He crept fast and low along the balcony, counting the windows to Diana's room. Hers was closed, and shuttered too. He rapped: no reply. He whipped out his catling, slid the blade into the crack and raised the bar, opened the shutter, tapped on the glass.
A voice below: 'I shall climb it.'
'Diana,' he called, and he saw her sit up in bed. 'Quick, for the love of God.'
The rope was creaking behind him now.
'Who is it?'
'Don't be a fool, woman,' he called, low but sharp, through the small gap he had forced in the frame - a broken pane would be sheer disaster. 'Open quick, dear Christ and all.'
She sprang up, opened the long window; he slid the shutter to without a sound, closed the window behind him, drew the curtain, and leapt into her bed, a huge bed, and he at the bottom of it. 'Get in on top of me,' he whispered through the sheets. 'Ruffle the clothes upon its foot.'
She sat there rigid, her toes warm upon his neck. Quiet footsteps on the balcony. 'No, that is Johnson's woman's room. Try the next but two.'
A long, silent pause; and at last a knock on the door. Madame Franchon's voice: she was extremely sorry to disturb Mrs Villiers, but it was thought that a thief had taken refuge in the hotel: had Mrs Villiers heard or seen anything? No, said Diana, nothing at all. Might Madame Franchon look at the inner rooms? Mrs Villiers had the keys.
'Certainly,' said Diana. 'Wait a moment.' She slipped out of bed, threw some gauzy things over it, opened the door and returned to the deep rumpled nest of eiderdown and countless pillows. 'The keys are on the table there,' she said.
It took Madame Franchon only a few minutes to decide that the inner rooms, with their closed, unbroken windows and their unviolated doors, contained no flying thief, but in that time Stephen thought he must die of cramp and suffocation. The worst was the flood of apologies, and he felt an infinite relief when Diana cut them short, closed the door on Madame Franchon, and shot the bolt.
He came out into the air and gradually the drumming in his ears died away. 'You should have a drink, Maturin,' she whispered, reaching for a pretty little decanter by her bed. 'You don't mind drinking out of my glass?'
She poured him a stiff tot and mechanically he drank it off: the fire spread in his vitals. He recognized the smell, the same smell that mingled with Diana's usual scent there in the bed. 'Is it a kind of whisky?' he asked.
'They call it bourbon,' she said. 'Another drop?'
Stephen shook his head. 'Is your maid here? The tall one, Peg? Send her away, right away, until tomorrow.'
Diana went into another room. He heard the distant ringing of a bell and then Diana's voice, telling Peg to take Abijah and Sam to Mr Adams's house in the dog-cart and to give him this note. There seemed to be some low murmuring objection, for Diana's voice rose to a sharp, imperious tone and the door closed with a decided clap.
She came back and sat on the side of the bed 'That's done,' she said 'I have sent them all off until Monday morning' She looked at him affectionately, hesitated, poured herself a finger of bourbon, and said, 'What are you
