He had not a doubt that at the windows of Billet’s room and of his daughter’s, they two were on the alert. All the tragedy or its failure depended on him. If he let the viscount pass within rifle range, he would let him march to his death.
In fact, Billet, sure that the nobleman would not marry a farmer’s daughter, had resolved to wipe out the insult done him in blood.
Suddenly Pitou, lying on the ground in a clump of willow, heard the gallop of a horse.
Billet must have heard it also for he came out of the house; and Ange had not a doubt that the willow copse which he had chosen to spy Catherine’s window had for the same reason recommended itself to the farmer.
As the latter advanced, he slipped back and slid down into the ditch.
The horse crossed the road at sixty paces, and as a shadow was soon detached from it, the rider must have leaped off, and turned the steed loose. It went on without stopping.
There was ten minutes of dreadful silence.
The night was so black that Pitou, reckoning his eyes better than Billet’s, hoped that he alone saw the shadow stealing towards the house.
But at the same moment, as the shadow went up under Catherine’s window, Pitou heard the click of a hammer going on full cock on the gun.
The shadow did not notice but rapped three times on the shutter.