I
From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were already speeding along at a rapid pace.
"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily.
"The Englishman—with the wench on his back? have you seen him?"
"Malediction! what do you mean?"
"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoarsely.
"No."
"He couldn't have passed you?"
"Impossible."
"Then unless some of us here have eyes like cats that limb of Satan will get away. On to him, my men," he called once more. "Can you see him?"
The darkness outside was intense. The north-westerly wind was whistling down the narrow street, drowning the sound of every distant footfall: it tore mercilessly round the men's heads, snatching the bonnets from off their heads, dragging at their loose shirts and breeches, adding to the confusion which already reigned.
"He went this way ..." shouted one.
"No! that!" cried another.
"There he is!" came finally in chorus from several lusty throats. "Just crossing the bridge."
"After him," cried Fleury, "an hundred francs to the man who first lays hands on that devil."
Then the chase began. The Englishman on ahead was unmistakable with that burden on his shoulder. He had just reached the foot of the bridge where a street lanthorn fixed on a tall bracket on the corner stone had suddenly thrown him into bold relief. He had less than an hundred metres start of his pursuers and with a wild cry of excitement they started in his wake.
He was now in the middle of the bridge—an unmistakable figure of a giant vaguely silhouetted against the light from the lanthorns on the further end of the bridge—seeming preternaturally tall and misshapen with that hump upon his back.
From right and left, from under the doorways of the houses in the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the Marats who had been left on guard in the street now joined in the chase. Overhead windows were thrown open—the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetful for the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries, leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. From everywhere—it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth—men, either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers and night hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinct of brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuit against a fellow creature.
Fleury was in the rear of his posse. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin, walking as rapidly as they could by his side, tried to glean some information out of the commandant's breathless and scrappy narrative:
"What happened exactly?"
"It was the man Paul Friche ... with the aristo wench on his back ... and another man carrying the ci-devant aristo ... they were the English spies ... in disguise ... they knocked over the lamp ... and got away...."
"Name of a...."
"No use swearing, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Fleury as hotly as his agitated movements would allow. "You and citizen Chauvelin are responsible for the affair. It was you, citizen Chauvelin, who placed Paul Friche inside that tavern in observation—you told him what to do...."
"Well?"
"Paul Friche—the real Paul Friche—was taken to the infirmary some hours ago ... with a cracked skull, dealt him by your Englishman, I've no doubt...."
"Impossible," reiterated Chauvelin with a curse.
"Impossible? why impossible?"
"The man I spoke to outside Le Bouffay...."
"Was not Paul Friche."
"He was on guard in the Place with two other Marats."
"He was not Paul Friche—the others were not Marats."
"Then the man who was inside the tavern?..."
"Was not Paul Friche."
" ... who climbed the gutter pipe ...?"
"Malediction!"
And the chase continued—waxing hotter every minute. The hare had gained slightly on the hounds—there were more than a hundred hot on the trail by now—having crossed the bridge he was on the Isle Feydeau, and without hesitating a moment he plunged at once into the network of narrow streets which cover the island in the rear of La Petite Hollande and the Hôtel de le Villestreux, where lodged Carrier, the representative of the people. The hounds after him had lost some ground by halting—if only for a second or two—first at the head of the bridge, then at the corners of the various streets, while they peered into the darkness to see which way had gone that fleet-footed hare.
"Down this way!"
"No! That!"
"There he goes!"
It always took a few seconds to decide, during which the man on ahead with his burden on his shoulder had time mayhap to reach the end of a street and to turn a corner and once again to plunge into darkness and out of sight. The street lanthorns were few in this squalid corner of the city, and it was only when perforce the running hare had to cross a circle of light that the hounds were able to keep hot on the trail.
"To the bridges for your lives!" now shouted Fleury to the men nearest to him. "Leave him to wander on the island. He cannot come off it, unless he jumps into the Loire."
The Marats—intelligent and ferociously keen on the chase—had already grasped the importance of this order: with the bridges guarded that fleet-footed Englishman might run as much as he liked, he was bound to be run to earth like a fox in his burrow. In a moment they had dispersed along the quays, some to one bridge-head, some to another—the Englishman could not double back now, and if he had already crossed to the Isle Gloriette, which was not joined to the left bank of the river by any bridge, he would be equally caught like a rat in a trap.
"Unless he jumps into the Loire," reiterated Fleury triumphantly.
"The proconsul will have more excitement than he hoped for," he added with a laugh. "He was looking forward to the capture of the English spy, and in deadly terror lest he escaped. But now meseems that we shall run our fox down in sight of the very gates of la Villestreux."
Martin-Roget's thoughts ran on Yvonne and the duc.
"You will remember, citizen commandant," he contrived to say to Fleury, "that the ci-devant Kernogans were found inside the Rat Mort."
Fleury uttered an exclamation of rough impatience. What did he, what did anyone care at this moment for a couple of aristos more or less when the noblest game that had ever fallen to the bag of any Terrorist was so near being run to earth? But Chauvelin said nothing. He walked on at a brisk pace, keeping close to commandant Fleury's side, in the immediate wake of the pursuit. His lips were pressed tightly together and a hissing breath came through his wide-open nostrils. His pale eyes were fixed into the darkness and beyond it, where the most bitter enemy of the cause which he loved was fighting his last battle against Fate.