Nevertheless, the whole present prospect dismayed me. Whither was it their scheme to remove the court, and for how long? and in the meantime, what Government was to represent it? I had immutably ranged myself against my former party, burning my boats behind me. What, now, if that party were to triumph, as I had already seen it triumph wholly and tragically elsewhere? The tables of vengeance would be a trifle turned, I thought.
However, I gained some reassurance on this point from de’ Medici, upon whom, in the midst of a distracted rush and scurry, I stumbled in the course of the afternoon.
“Hush!” he replied to my question. “Whisper it not in Gath. You are indiscreet, most beautiful. Listen: if we go, it will be but as a fowler withdraws from his nets, that the foolish birds may fly more confident into the lure.”
If we go! An event which happened in the morning resolved that question for ever. Ferreri, the poor courier, was hardly sent on his message (luckily a verbal one) when the suspecting mob fell upon him, dragged him all torn and bleeding to the palace square, and there, with savage cries: “A spy! a Jacobin spy,” despatched him with their knives before the very eyes of the king, whom they had insisted should be witness to this proof of their loyalty. The poor monarch tottered back aghast into our midst; and from that moment the end was sure.
As the day waned, the confusion in the palace waxed indescribable. Tendency, no doubt, there was in the seeming chaos: I, as a stranger, could do no more than commit myself blindly to the stream, resolved in one matter alone—that I would not remain stranded and left behind. All questions of precedence but in flight—of etiquette, of privacy even—were blown to the winds. We were become a mere commonwealth of terror. Great ladies issued puffing and lumbering from their apartments, their arms loaded with goods and dresses, which they tripped over like clowns as they ran; nervous warriors got entangled in their swords, and lay gasping on their backs like dying fish. I never laughed so much or so hysterically in my life. With all but the almighty family itself it was sauve qui peut; and I was beginning to formulate my own desperate plans, when de’ Medici whispered quick in my ear—
“Follow me without seeming to!”
It had been impossible in that frantic crowd, had not my wits already noted his every trick and mannerism. Fortunate in being utterly unencumbered, I pursued the shadow. It led me by intricate ways, out of the light into darkness, out of the tumult into silence, by a back passage through the arsenal, and so down to the waterside, where a little boat with dusk figures was waiting. Without ceremony we tumbled in, and sat panting.
“Any more?” said a voice in my own good English tongue.
De’ Medici answered in the negative.
“Give way, men!” cried the officer sharply.