He could do it, but he had to run the gauntlet of Charny at ten paces. He seized one of the horse-pistols and levelled it.
"Stop!" he called out again, "or you are a dead man."
Drouet only leaned over the more and pressed on. The royalist pulled the trigger but the flint on the hammer only shot sparks from the pan: he furiously flung the weapon at the flyer, took out the other of the pair and plunging into the woods after him, shot again at the dark-form—but once more the hammer fell uselessly; neither pistol was loaded.
It was then he remembered that Dandoins had called out something to him which he had heard imperfectly.
"I made a mistake in the horse," he said, "and no doubt what he shouted was that the pistols were not charged. Never mind, I will catch this villain, and strangle him with my own hands if needs must."
He took up the pursuit of the shadow which he just descried in the obscurity. But he had hardly gone a hundred paces in the forest before his horse broke down in the ditch: he was thrown over its head; rising he pulled it up and got into the seat again but Drouet was out of sight.
Thus it was that he escaped Charny, and swept like a phantom over the road to bid the King's conductors to make not another step.
They obeyed, for he had conjured them in the name of the Nation, beginning to be more mighty than the King's.
Scarcely had he dived into the Lower Town and the sound of his horse lessened before they heard that of another coming nearer.
Isidore appeared by the same street as Drouet had taken.