Carinne caught at the rough hand of our preserver and kissed it.
“Monsieur, thou art a deadman angel!” she cried; and broke into a little fit of weeping.
His lids fell. I saw his throat working. He examined his hand as if he thought something had stung it.
“Yes, she is very pretty,” he muttered. “I think I would give my life for her.”
Then he added, vaguely: “Chou pour chou—I will take it out in Hollands.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE SALAD COURSE.
Citoyen Tithon Riouffe et femme had yet to experience the most extraordinary instance of that favouritism, by an after-display of which, towards those whom she has smitten without subduing, Fortune proclaims herself the least supernatural of goddesses. Truly, they had never thrown into the lottery of events with a faint heart; and now a first prize was to be the reward of their untiring persistency.
Possibly, indeed, the papers of recommendation might have sufficed of themselves; yet that they would have carried us (having regard to our moulting condition, poor cage-worn sparrows! and the necessary slowness of our advance) in safety to the coast, I most strenuously doubt.
Dear God! the soughing of the May wind, the whisper of the grasses, the liquid flutter of the stars, that were like lights reflected in a lake! The hour of ten saw us lifted to the plain in body—to the heavens in spirit. For freedom, we were flying from the land of liberty; for life, from the advocates of the Rights of Man. We sobbed and we embraced.
“Some day,” we cried to Gusman, “we will come back and roll thee under a hogshead of schnapps!”—and then we set our faces to the north, and our teeth to a long task of endurance—one no less, indeed, than a sixty-league tramp up the half of the Isle de France and the whole of Picardie. Well, at least, as in the old days, we should walk together, with only the little rogue that laughs at locksmiths riding sedan between us.