‘I must have your authority, sir, before I can be arrested,’ replied Exili, as we may now call him, with singular and suddenly assumed calmness. ‘And you must also prove that I am the man of whom you are in search.’
‘I can satisfy you on both points,’ cried a voice from amidst the guard.
The soldiers fell back on either side of the doorway, and Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, the young officer who had held parley with him on the Carrefour du Châtelet, entered the room.
‘I know you to be the same Antonio Exili,’ he continued; ‘you confessed it to me yourself but this afternoon. And here,’ he added, as he held a paper towards him, ‘is the lettre de cachet for your arrest.’
The girl, who had started at the first sound of Sainte-Croix’s voice, now leant anxiously forward as he entered the room; and when she saw him, a sudden and violent cry of surprise burst from her lips. She checked herself, however, whilst he was speaking, but as soon as he had finished, she rushed up to him, and, grasping his arm, cried ‘Gaudin!’
‘Louise!—you here!’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix. ‘I thought you were in Languedoc,’ he added, dropping his voice, whilst his brow contracted into an angry frown. He was evidently ill-prepared for the rencontre, and but little pleased at it.
The Italian took advantage of the temporary diversion afforded by the interview. With the nerve and muscular strength of a young man, he vaulted over the table against which he had been standing, and rushed into his own apartment, closing the door, which was of massy wood, against his pursuers. But this only caused the delay of an instant. Finding that their partisans made not the least effect upon the thick panels, the officer in command ordered them to take a large beam that was lying on the floor—apparently a portion of some old mill-machinery, and use it as a battering ram. It was lifted by six or eight of the guard, and hurled with all their united strength against the door. For the first two or three blows it resisted their efforts, but at last gave way with a loud crash, and the laboratory of the physician lay open before them.
‘En avant!’ cried the captain of the watch; ‘and take him, dead or alive. Follow me.’
The officer entered the room, but had scarcely gone two steps, when he uttered a loud and spasmodic scream and fell on the floor. A guard, who was following him, reeled back against his fellows with the same cry, but fainter; and immediately afterwards a dense and acrid vapour rolled in heavy coloured fumes into the outer chamber. Its effects were directly perceptible upon the rest, who fell back seized with violent and painful contractions of the windpipe; and the man who had kept close upon their commander, was now also struck down by the deadly vapour, which a violent draught of cold air spread around them. But they had time to perceive that a window at the end of the small laboratory was open, and that Exili had passed through it and escaped to the river.
‘It is poison! it is poison!’ cried Benoit lustily, apparently most anxious to give every information in his power respecting his late tenant, and turning fool’s evidence in his eagerness to clear his own character. ‘He has broken the bottle it was in. I know it well. He killed some dogs with it, before the Pâques, as if they had been shot. Keep back, on your lives!’