In the Day of Adversity

He threw himself upon the bed as he uttered his little prayer – he must sleep at all cost. Even though André should denounce him to-morrow ere he could quit Bayeux – even though he should have to join la chaine again on its road to the galleys – ay! even though the scaffold was to witness his death in the morning, his wornout frame must rest. He had been without sleep for now almost the whole time that had elapsed since Tourville's fleet had first loomed up before the English; it seemed to him that he could scarce recall when he slept last. And what terrible events he had gone through since that time!

Had he tried to keep awake, he could scarce have done so; as it was he made no such effort. Wrapped in the coverlet, the sword unbuckled but grasped in his hand, he stretched his body out and gave himself up to slumber – slumber deep and heavy as that of a drugged man.

He would not have awakened when he did, would have slept on, perhaps, for hours longer, had not a continued deep, droning, noise – interrupted now and again by a shriller one – at last succeeded in thoroughly rousing him – a noise that came as it seemed from below the bed he lay on, and was only interrupted and drowned once by the booming of the cathedral clock striking three. Three! and he had lain down in early evening had slept for hours. Yet how weary he still felt! It was as yet quite dark – the dawn would not come for another hour, he knew – what could those sounds below mean? He raised himself on his elbow to listen and hear more plainly.

At first he could distinguish nothing but the deep hum, broken now and again by the sharper, more metallic sound; but as he bent over the bed – being now quite wide awake and with his senses naturally very acute – he recognised what those sounds were. And more especially was he enabled to do so from the fact that the planks of the floor were not joined very closely together – or had come apart since they were first laid down – as he had observed when he entered the room the day before.

The sounds were André and his wife talking. At this hour of the night, or morning! And gradually, with his senses strained to the utmost, he was enabled to catch almost every word that they uttered.

"But," said the woman, "I like it not. It is treachery —bassesse. And he is beau. Mon Dieu! mais il est beau– "

"Peste!" the man replied. "It is always of les beaux you think. Once 'twas the fisher from Havre, then Le Bic, of the maréchausse, now this one. And why base? The king pays a hundred gold pistoles for such as he. And if not to us, then others will get it. Why not we?"

"You are sure? You are not mistaken?"

"Sure! From the first moment. Though I held my peace. Ho! why frighten the bird away from the nest? At first the hair and mustache puzzled me – then – "

St. Georges started as he heard this. Now he knew of whom they talked.

" – it came back to me. A galérien in the Raquin, a surly dog – one of the worst; one of those who had been gentlemen. Gentlemen! Ma foi! I have made their backs tingle often, often!"

"Ay!" muttered St. Georges between his teeth, "you have! 'Tis true."

"You are certain?" the woman asked again. "A mistake would be terrible – would send you back to the galleys yourself, only as beaten slave – not overseer."

"Certain! So will the others be when he is taken – alive or dead. There on his shoulder, ma belle, they will see proof – the fleur-de-lis. Fortunate for him he was not a religious prisoner, a victim of our holy Church. Otherwise it would have been burnt into his cheek, and he would have been so marked he could not have escaped a day!"

"Will it be alive —or dead?"

"Dead, if he resists, at daybreak, in an hour. Then they will come for him; it is arranged. And take him – doubtless slay him. What matter? The reward is the same. 'Alive or dead,' says the paper – they showed it me at La Poste – 'one hundred gold pistoles.' And the horse will be ours, too."

"How will they do it?"

"Hist! Listen. And get you to bed before they come. You need not be in it. I have arranged it, je te dis."

"But how – how – how?"

"I will awake him, bid him hurry; tell him he is discovered, lost, unless he flies. Then, doubtless, he will rush to the door, and, poof! they will cut him down as he rushes out. I have told them he is violent. They must strike at once. Tu comprends?"

"Yes," and it seemed to the listener as if the woman had answered with a shudder.

"And," the man said again, "the horse will be ours, too. I have not told them of that. No! we shall have that and the pistoles. Now, get you to bed. They will be here ere long. The day is coming. His last on earth if he runs out suddenly or resists."

The listener heard a moment or two later a stealthy tread upon the stairs outside – a tread that passed his door and went on upstairs and was then no more apparent. It was the woman withdrawing from the place where he was to be slain.

To be slain! Possibly. Yet, he determined, not as the man had arranged it. To be slain it might be, but not without a struggle, an attempt for life; without himself slaying others.

He crept to the window after finding that the door had been locked from the outside – no doubt during his long slumber! – and gazed out. It was not yet near daybreak; the miserable street was still in darkness; in no window was there any light – but above in the heavens there was, however, a gray tinge that told of the coming day. Then he looked around.

Beneath the window, which was a common dormer one, as is almost always the case in northern France and the Netherlands, there was nothing but the rain pipe running beneath it along the length of the house. Below was the street full of cobble and other stones – a good thirty feet below! To drop that height, even though hanging by his hands to the rain pipe and thereby diminishing the distance some eight feet would, however, be impossible; it would mean broken ankles and legs and dislocated thigh bones. Yet, what else to do? Behind him was the locked door; in front, through the window, an escape that would leave him mangled and at the mercy of those who were coming to slay him.

Still peering out into the darkness – that was now not all darkness – he saw about six feet to the left of him the mouth of the perpendicular pipe into which the horizontal one emptied itself and which must run down the side of the house. His chance, he thought, was here. Yet if he would avail himself of it he must be quick; the day would come ere long; at any moment those who had been summoned by the landlord must be approaching; he would be discovered.

He fastened his sword to his back with his sash – he could not drag it by his side – then head first he crept out of the window, testing with his right hand the water pipe – for six feet he would have to rely upon that to fend him from destruction, to prevent him from rolling off the roof to death below on the cobblestones! With that right hand pressed against it he could – if it did not give way under the pressure – reach the spout of the upright pipe. As he tried it it seemed strong, securely fastened to the lip of the roof; he might venture.

Face downward, his chest to the sloping roof, of which there was three feet between the sill of the window and the pipe at the edge, he lowered himself – his right hand on the pipe, his left, until obliged to loose it, clinging to the window frame. And at last he was on the roof itself, with the right hand still firmly pressed against that pipe, and the top joints of his left-hand fingers, and even his nails, dug into the rough edges of the tiles. That frail pipe and those tiles were all there was now to save him – nothing else but them between him and destruction! Slowly he thus propelled himself along, feeling every inch of the pipe carefully ere he bore any weight on it, feeling also each tile he touched to see if it was loose or tight. For he knew that one slip – one detached tile, one inch of yielding of the pipe – and he would go with a sudden rush over the sloping precipice to the stones below. And as he dragged himself along, hearing the grating of his body and the scraping of the buttons on his clothes against the roof, he prayed that the man watching below might not hear them also. At last he reached the mouth of the upright pipe, grasped it, and, as before, pressed against it to discover if it was firm – as it proved to be – then drew his body up over it, and gradually prepared to descend by it, feeling with his feet for the continuance of it below.

But, to his horror, there was no such continuance! His legs, hanging down from his groin over the roof – while his body was supported on the wide mouth of the pipe and by his hands being dug into the sides of the tiles, where they were joined to each other – touched nothing but the bare space of the wall. There was no pipe! It was broken off short a foot below the horizontal one, and the wall, he could feel, was damp from the water which had escaped and flowed down from where it was so broken.

He was doomed now, he knew; which doom should he select – to fall below and be crushed and mangled, or return to the room and, refusing to come out, be either done to death or taken prisoner? As he pondered thus in agony, away down the street he heard voices breaking on the morning air, he heard the clank of loosely fastened sabres on the stones – they were coming to take him – to, as André had said, "cut him down." And, scarce knowing what he did, or why in his frenzy he decided thus, he let his body further down into space, and, with his hands grasping the pipe's mouth, swung over that space. And once, ere he let go, which he must do in another moment, for the sides of the spout were cutting into his palms, he twisted his head and glanced down beneath him.

Then as he did so he gave a gasp – almost a cry of relief unspeakable. Beneath him, not two yards below his dangling feet, was the stone roof of the porch or doorway of the inn. The fall to that could not break his legs surely! – he prayed God the sound of it might not disturb the man within, who must be on the alert.

Closing his feet so that both should alight as nearly as possible on the same spot, pressing his body as near to the wall as he could, he let go the spout and dropped.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ANOTHER ESCAPE

He alighted in the exact middle of the porch roof and fell with his ankles against the foot-high raised parapet. Then he paused a moment ere deciding what he should do next.

The sound of voices and clanking sabres were coming nearer – also it would soon now be light. And he wondered that he heard no noise from the man watching within; wondered that he was not staring about for those who were coming; almost wondered that he was not standing at the door with it open, ready to go out and meet them.

One thing St. Georges recognised as necessary to be done at once, viz., to quit the roof of the porch. There was no safety for him there; the instant André entered his room he would perceive he was flown, would rush to the window, and, looking out, would doubtless perceive him crouching and huddled up. He must quit that, and at once. But where? Then suddenly he bethought him of the stable that ran off at left angles from the house, close by the porch itself. That would be his best place of safety; moreover, he would have the horse to his hand; on it he might yet escape. And also from the open door of the stable he could reconnoitre, observe what happened, what must happen, in the next few moments. For now the voices of those who were approaching sounded very near. A little while, and his fate now trembling in the balance would be decided.

He lowered himself quickly over the side of the doorway roof – having but a distance of four or five feet to drop when hanging down – and observed that still the door was fast and that there was no sign of André about – doubtless he was waiting for the men to come, ere opening it! Immediately afterward he touched the ground and turned his steps to the alley leading to the stable and swiftly passed up to it, keeping under the shelter of a low wall. So far he was safe!

The horse whinnied a little as he entered – already the creature had come to know him well, perhaps because of his kindly treatment – but he silenced it at once by placing his arm over its mouth and nostrils, then seized the bridle and saddle and prepared it ready for mounting, doing so very quietly, for now the men were close at hand! This he did very rapidly, yet determinately, for, the animal once saddled, his chance would be still better. He had made his plans: if, when he was discovered missing, any should advance down the alley to seek for him, or to search if the horse was gone, he had resolved to mount as they advanced and to charge through them. Then, when he had done all that was necessary, he removed his sword from his back, drew it from the sheath and affixed the latter to his side. He was ready now.

And not too soon! In the now gathering light, sombre and lead-coloured, with, above, some clouds from which a misty rain was falling slightly, he saw three men belonging to the Garde de la Poste arrive in front of the door. One, a sergeant, struck lightly with his finger on the door and bent his ear against it.

"Si, si!" he heard this man say, a second after, evidently in reply to André from within, "quite ready. Send him forth." And still he kept his ear to the side post. A moment later he spoke again, also doubtless in answer to a question from within.

"Nay, have no fear," he said; "once outside he is ours," and he turned to the other two and gave them some orders which St. Georges could not overhear. He could see, however; and what he saw was, that under their superior's directions each of the others drew their heavy dragoon sabres – for to that branch of the army the Garde de la Poste belonged – and placed themselves one on either side of the porch.

Then all listened attentively.

A moment later, from the first and top floor, through the open window from which St. Georges had escaped, they heard the shouts of the man André; and St. Georges heard them, too, and grasped his sword more firmly, and with them came from the other side of the house a cry from the woman.

"Carogne!" exclaimed the sergeant, "the galley boy is giving trouble – André cannot induce him to descend. Yet, hark! he comes! listen to his tread on the stairs – he is rushing down. Be ready!" and as he spoke the two men raised their swords.

Again all heard the voice of André shouting within, the woman screaming, too; the door was fumbled at, and in the still, dim, misty light St. Georges saw a form rush out, and a minute later fall shrieking heavily to the ground, cut down by both sabres of the dragoons.

"We have him! we have him!" the sergeant shouted. "Come forth, man; he is ours!"

And as he spoke St. Georges leaped into the saddle, knowing that the time had almost come.

Another moment, and he heard one of the dragoons, who had been bending over the fallen man, exclaim: