But more than twenty minutes had been frittered away.
Alarm was in the royal party; the Queen thought that the downfall of the two pair of horses were akin to the four candles going out one after another which she had taken to portend the death of herself, her husband and their two children.
Still, on getting out of the town, she and the King and his sister had all exclaimed:
"We are saved!"
But, a hundred paces beyond, a man shouted in at the window:
"Your measures are badly taken—you will be arrested!"
The Queen screamed but the man jumped into the hedge and was lost to sight.
Happily they were but four leagues from Sommevelle Bridge, where Choiseul and forty hussars were to be posted. But it was three in the afternoon and they were nearly four hours late.