I should have given up the task as hopeless, but the thought of Nanette a captive, suffering I knew not what indignities, spurred me on. The quarter was plunged in absolute darkness, there being no pretence of lighting the streets, and I could not see two paces before me, but from the stench which assailed my nostrils—the vapor of crime and disease—I knew I was again in one of those filthy quarters of the town where I had spent the day.
Shadows passed me, leaving behind an impression of incredible foulness. Strange shapes brushed against me. There was something terrible and threatening in the very atmosphere. I felt that, although I could see nothing, I was fully visible to these denizens of the night, whose eyes had grown accustomed to its blackness. Here and there a feeble ray of light penetrated the shutters of a window or fought its way through a crevice in a doorway and faintly illumined a few inches of the dirty pavement. Everywhere else was gloom, so thick, so heavy, so absolute, that it seemed to press upon and suffocate me.
I put my hand to my face and found my forehead damp with perspiration.
“Come,” I said, “this will not do. You are frightening yourself, my friend. There is really nothing here to fear,” and I continued on.
At the end of a moment, I ran against a wall. I felt along it with my hands and found that it completely closed the end of the street. Evidently it was a cul-de-sac and I must retrace my steps. I reflected that it were folly to attempt anything more until daylight came to my assistance, and that the wisest thing for me to do was to return to the Rue du Chantre and secure a good night’s rest. Then in the morning, with the help of M. d’Argenson’s men, I would soon unearth Mère Fouchon. I shuddered to think that Nanette was condemned to spend a second night in such a place, but plainly I was powerless to prevent it.
As I turned away from the wall, I seemed to hear the sound of many feet shuffling along the pavement, of many voices whispering together. A thousand eyes seemed glaring at me through the darkness. There was something inexpressibly chilling and menacing in this murmur, which continually receded as I advanced, only to close in behind me. I felt that I had but to stretch out my hand to touch a wall of living bodies, and yet I dared not do so.
Suddenly a door right beside me was thrown open and a flood of light poured out into the street. For a moment I was blinded, and then, framed in the doorway, I saw the shrivelled form and leering face of Mère Fouchon.
“Oh, oh!” she cried, in a shrill voice, “so it is M. le Moyne—the chivalrous M. le Moyne, who prefers a bed on the floor to his own couch when a pretty girl occupies it!”
My sword was out of its sheath in a breath.
“Hellcat!” I cried, and sprang towards her.