‘Pshaw! Louise, this is childish at such a moment. Let go my arm, if you would escape an injury. You see I am wanted. You are mad thus to annoy me.’
‘Heaven knows I have had enough to make me so,’ returned the girl, struggling with the hands of the other as he tried to free himself from her grasp. ‘But, Gaudin! I beg it on my knees, one, only one, kind word. Ah!’
She screamed with pain, as Sainte-Croix, in desperation, seized her wrists and twisting them fiercely round, forced her to loose her hold. And then casting her from him, with no light power, she fell senseless on the floor at the feet of Bathilde, who had remained completely paralysed since the commencement of the hurried scene.
‘He will escape by the river,’ cried the second in command of the night watch. ‘We must follow him.’
Pressing onward with the rest, Sainte-Croix passed from the chamber and stood on the edge of the floating tenements. The boat in which Benoit had arrived was still lying where it had been left fastened by a cord. He directly ordered two of the men into it, and entering himself, divided the cord that held it with his sword, and then put forth upon the river. The others gained the roof of the mill, and they were then joined by some members of the Garde Bourgeois, who had descended, and were still coming down by a rope-ladder, depending from the window of one of the old gabled houses upon the Pont Notre Dame. This was evidently the manner in which they had gained access to the mill, when their feet had first been heard overhead by Exili.
In the meanwhile, the object of their pursuit had escaped by the window, as has been seen, and dropped into the hollow of one of the lighters that floated the entire structure, with the intention of passing underneath the mill-floor to the spot at which another small boat, used by himself alone, was fastened. But it was here quite dark, and the passage was one of extreme caution, being amongst the timbers of the woodwork upholding the mill, between some of which the large black wheels were turning, as the deep and angry water foamed and roared below them, lashing the slippery beams or leaping wildly over the narrow ledges of the lighters.
Supplied with torches by the Garde Bourgeois, the others pervaded every portion of the mill, and at last came upon the track of their object, his lace collar having caught some projecting woodwork in his flight. One or two of them leapt boldly down into the lighters, and the others clung round the structure above upon frightfully insecure foot-room. They were now under the apartment, and entirely amidst the timbers of the works. The light of their torches revealed to them Exili passing onward, at the peril of his life, to gain the boat; but close before them.
A cry of recognition broke from two or three of the guard, and the Italian, as a last chance, caught hold of a beam which overhung the wheels, contriving, at an imminent risk, to pass himself across the channel of the current by swinging one hand before the other. Those who had regarded his general appearance, would scarcely have given him credit for so much power.
The Capture