With rapid steps the hated police agent was drawing nearer. A grim chuckle escaped the lips of the old Chouan as he once more shouldered his musket. The evening gloom was gradually enfolding the wood in its embrace. On either side of the road the miscreants in their hiding-place were peeping through the undergrowth, watching for the approach of their prey. Presently they could discern the vague outline of his slender figure walking unhesitatingly towards them. Within a few seconds he would be passing right in front of them, at a distance of less than twenty paces. Blue-Heart thought that he would wait and take no risks and only pull the trigger when the victim was quite near, the aim sure, and the fast gathering darkness not likely to play him any illusive trick. Not a sound, not the flutter of a dead leaf nor the crackling of a twig would have revealed to an untrained ear the presence of a band of assassins, and for another minute or so the police agent walked along, wary and alert as was his wont but as yet unsuspicious. His footstep sounded unhesitating and firm.
Then suddenly he paused and threw a quick, searching look around him.
"Who goes there?" he called in a loud and firm voice.
Hie ear, attuned to the faintest breath which might be drawn around him, had warned him, all at once, of the danger which awaited him if he continued on his path; it had betrayed to his keen consciousness the presence of human beings, living, breathing, close by—somewhere in the thicket—hiding and crouching in the darkness; obviously with evil intent.
Next moment something definite stirred in the thicket not twenty paces from where he stood; there was a faint click which to a trained ear was unmistakable. In a twinkling Fernand had drawn a pistol from his pocket, and with a swift and sudden spring, he threw himself against a tall beech which bordered the road; and here he stood, with his back against the massive trunk, pistol in hand and his keen eyes searching the darkness around him.
There was a moment of tense suspense and of absolute silence, and in an instant the Man in Grey felt his arm seized from behind, the pistol was knocked out of his hand, a rough fist was thrust into his face, and he found himself pinioned against the tree, whilst a hoarse voice shouted lustily:
"You can shoot now, friend Blue-Heart. No chance of missing the vermin in the dark. We've got him tight."
Then it all happened in a second. A musket-shot rang through the evening air; its sharp report came simultaneously with a loud and piercing cry which rang right through and above it. The cry proceeded from a woman's lips; it was immediately followed by a violent imprecation from one of the Chouans. The Man in Grey, dazed, bewildered, not understanding, had only heard that cry, straight in front of him, right from out the thicket whence had come the report and flash of the assassin's musket. The rough hands that held him relaxed, and there was a wild confusion of cries and oaths and a scrambling and scrimmage in the undergrowth behind him.
What had happened within the depths of the shadows in front of him he did not know, but at a bound he cleared the intervening width of the road, and Constance de Plélan fell staggering in his arms.
"Constance!" he exclaimed, still mystified by the turn of events, "you are hurt!"