She could not conclude for the constables appeared again as the coin fell at Pitou's feet. He picked it up quickly. Indeed the armed constables stood on the sill for an instant, astounded to see the man free whom they had left bound. But as at the dog's least stir the hare bolts, at the first move of the police, Pitou made a prodigious leap and was on the other side of the hedge.
They uttered a yell which brought out the corporal, who held a little casket under the arm. He lost no time in speech-making but darted after the escaped one. His men followed his example. But they were not able to jump the hedge and ditch, like Pitou, and were forced to go roundabout.
But when they got over, they beheld the youth five hundred paces off on the meadow, tearing away directly to the woods, a quarter of a league distant, which he would gain in a short time.
He turned at this nick, and perceiving the enemy take up the chase, though more for the name of the thing than any hope of overtaking him, he doubled his speed and soon dashed out of sight in the thicket.
He had the wind as well as the swiftness of the buck, and he ran for ten minutes as he might for an hour. But judging that he was out of danger, by his instinct, he stopped to breathe, listen and make sure that he was quite alone.
"It is incredible what a quantity of incidents have been crammed into three days," he mused.
He looked alternately at his coin and the knife.
"I must find time to change the gold and give Miss Catherine a penny for the knife, for fear it will cut our friendship. Never mind, since she bade me go to Paris, I shall go."
On making out where he was, he struck a straight line over the heath to come out on the Paris highroad.