“Peep under the cart-tail, and thou shalt see.”
The gendarme lifted a corner of the canvas with his sword-point. A wedge of light entered, and amazed my panic-stricken eyes.
“Il est bon là!” chuckled the fellow, and withdrew his sword. He had noticed nothing of me; but, as we whipped to a start, he made a playful cut at the canvas with his weapon. The blade touched my thigh, inflicting a slight flesh-wound, and I could not forbear a spasmodic jerk of pain. At this he cried out, “Holà hé! here is a dead frog that kicks!” and came scuttling after us. Now I gave myself up for lost; but at the moment a frolicsome comrade hooked the runner’s ankle with a stick, and brought the man heavily to the ground. There followed a shout; a curse of fury, and—Fortune, it appeared, had again intervened on my behalf.
Silence succeeded, for all but the long monotonous jolting and pitching over savage ground. At length Crépin pulled up his horses, and, leaning back from his seat, tossed open a flap of the canvas.
“Come, then,” he said in a queer voice. “We have won clear by the grace of Heaven.”
I wallowed, faint and nauseated, from my horrible refuge. Sick, and in pain of mind and body, I crept to a seat beside my companion. We were on a dark and desolate waste. A little moon lay low in the sky. Behind us the enceinte of the city twinkled with goblin lights.
“And these?” I said, weakly, signifying our dreadful load. “Whither dost thou carry them, Crépin?”
“Whither I carry thee, Monsieur le Comte—to the quarries under the Plain of Mont-Rouge.”
“To unconsecrated ground?”
“What would you? The yards are glutted. The Madeleine bulges like a pie-crust. At last by force of necessity we consecrate this, the natural cemetery of the city, dug by itself, to the city’s patron saint, La Guillotine.”