But I released my hold and stood panting. I was at the moment no whit in love with life, but I dreaded by the least stubbornness to precipitate the catastrophe that threatened that half-fainting girl. Her Casimir gave his arm to in a peremptory manner. She clung to him, and he led her stumbling across the yard, the little whimpering pinch-fist scuttling in their wake. The mob spat curses after them, but—this intermezzo being no part of its programme—it respected the Deputy’s insignia of office so far as to allow him his perquisite.
Then, with a howl of fury, it turned upon me—
“Accursed! thou dost well to dispute the people’s will!”
“See his fine monseigneur hands, washed white in a bath of milk, while the peasants drank rotten water!”
“He will think to cow us with a look. He cannot disabuse himself of the tradition. Down with the dog of an aristocrat!”
“But if he is Brunswick’s courier—Brunswick that would dine in Paris on the boiling hearts of patriots!”
I was backing slowly towards the gate as they followed reviling me. What would you? I could not help others; I would take my own destinies in hand. Here, in deadly personal peril, I felt my feet on the good earth once more, and found restoration of my reason in a violence of action. There was no assistance possible. Paris this night was a menagerie, in which all beasts of prey and of burden were released from restraint to resolve for themselves the question of survival.
In a moment I turned and fled, and half-a-dozen came screaming after me. I gained the gate in advance, and sped down the Rue St Benoit. One man, lurching from a wineshop, cut at me aimlessly with a notched and bloody sabre; but I evaded him with ease, and he fell into the midst of the pursuers, retarding them a little. I reached the south-west angle of the prison, where the Place split up, like the blown corner of a flag, into many little crooked ribbons of streets, and amongst these I dived, racing haphazard, while the red-socks thudded in my wake and my heart in my ribs. Suddenly, turning a corner, I saw the narrow mouth of an alley gape to my left. Into it I went, like a touched worm into its hole, and, swallowed by the blackness, stood still. The feet pounded by; but, sooner or later, I knew the dogs must nose back to pick up the lost scent. Then they would have me nicely in a little cul de sac, like a badger in a tub.
I leaned my shoulder—to the wall, as I thought; but the wall gave to my pressure, and I stumbled and went through it with a sliding run, while something flapped to, grievously scoring my shins in its passing. I was on my feet in an instant, however, and then I saw that I had broken, by way of a swing-door, into a little dusty lobby, to one side of which was a wicket and pay-place, and thence a flight of wooden stairs ran aloft to some chamber from which flowed down a feeble radiance of light.
I pushed through the wicket (not a soul was in the place, it seemed) and went softly and rapidly up the stairs. At the top I came upon a sight that at first astounded, then inspired me.