The horse came nearer; the ring of his hoofs on the stones of the road terrified Courtin; danger was there, there! and he must flee from it. He whistled softly to attract the attention of the fisherman. The latter stopped rowing.
"This way! this way!" cried Courtin.
He had scarcely said the words before a vigorous stroke of the oars sent the boat within four feet of the fugitive.
"Can you put me across the lake and take me as far as Port-Saint-Martin?" asked Courtin. "I'll pay you a franc for it."
The fisherman, who was wrapped in a sort of pea-jacket, with a hood which concealed his face, answered only by a nod; but he did better than reply. Using his boat-hook he drove the wherry in among the reeds, which bent and quivered under its prow; and just as the horse whose coming had so terrified Maître Courtin reached the point in the road he had lately left, the latter, with two springs, gained the boat and was safely in it.
The fisherman, as though he had shared his passenger's apprehensions, turned the boat toward the middle of the lake, while Courtin gave a sigh of relief. At the end of ten minutes the road and the trees that bordered it seemed merely a line upon the horizon.
Courtin could scarcely contain himself for joy. The boat, which some fortunate chance had brought to that spot, would enable him to crown his hopes and fulfil all wishes. Once at Port-Saint-Martin, he had only a three-mile walk to Nantes over a road frequented at every hour of the day or night; and once in Nantes he was safe.
Courtin's joy was so great that, in spite of himself, and as an effect of the reaction of his terror, he felt impelled to some outward manifestation of it. Sitting in the stern of the boat, he looked excitedly at the fisherman, as the latter bent to his oars and put at every stroke a stretch of water between him and danger. Those strokes, he counted them aloud; then he laughed a hollow laugh, fingered his belt, and made the gold slip forward and back inside it. This was not mere joy--it was intoxication.
Presently, however, he began to think the fisherman had gone far enough from the shore, and that it was high time to turn the boat's head to Port-Saint-Martin, which they were now leaving behind them on their right. He waited a few minutes, thinking it might be a man[oe]uvre of the fisherman's to catch some current of which he would take advantage. But still the fisherman rowed on and on towards the middle of the lake.
"Hey, gars," cried the farmer at last, "you can't have heard me rightly; you are making for Port-Saint-Père, and I told you Port-Saint-Martin. Go the way I told you, and you'll earn your money sooner!"