My teeth clicked rigid. I saw, ahead of us, a tall careless figure lounge into the open and stop over against the door of the carriage. At the same moment inspiration came to the commissary. His gaze was introspective. He had not yet noticed the direction of ours. He slapped his hand to his thigh as he hurried forward.
“Mon Dieu!” cried he, “it is simple. Why did I not think of it sooner? Prove, then, thy knowledge of this Englishman by giving me his name!”
With the very words I set off running. A startled cry, to which I paid no heed, pursued me.
“I hold a hostage! I hold a hostage!” screamed the commissary; and immediately, as I understood, nipped Carinne by the elbow.
But by then I was come up with the stranger. He turned and received me straddle-legged, his eyes full of a passionless alertness. I lost not an instant.
“Monsieur,” I panted, “we are fugitive aristocrats. In the name of God, help us!”
I could have adored him for his reception of this astounding appeal. He never moved a muscle.
“Tout droit!” said he; “but give us the tip!”
“Riouffe is dead” (his eyelids twitched at that)—“I have his passports. I am Riouffe—and this is madame, my wife.”
Simultaneously, in the instant of my speaking, the frantic commissary brought up Carinne, and, to a metallic clang of hoofs, our fateful post-boy issued from the inn-yard in charge of his cattle. For a moment the situation was absolutely complete and dramatic,—the agonised suitor proposing; the humorous and heroic nonchalant disposing; the petrified jockey, right; the hostage chevalière in the grasp of the heavy villain, left. Then all converged to the central interest, and destroyed the admirable effectiveness of the tableau.