“Tavernay!” screamed a voice. “Tavernay! Oh, my love!” and I turned my head to see Charlotte starting from the cot, her hands outstretched.
For an instant I shook them off; then they closed about me and hurled me from the tent. I fancied that death was upon me then and there, so merciless were the blows they dealt me. By some miracle I managed to keep my feet, and suddenly a gigantic figure drove itself through the crowd like a catapult.
“Murderers!” he shrieked. “Assassins!” and I heard the blows which sent them to right and left. “What!” he continued, taking his stand before me. “You would kill a defenseless man—twenty against one! What sort of cowards are you?”
“He is an aristocrat,” broke in the man who held my halter. “Citizen Goujon has ordered that he be hanged.”
“Hang him and welcome,” rejoined the newcomer; “but don’t let me catch you worrying him like dogs. Now off with you!”
The voice sounded strangely familiar in my ears, and when I had shaken the blood from my eyes, I saw that my rescuer was Dubosq.
“Many thanks, my friend,” I said; and he started round astonished. “It seems you do not know me,” I added, as he stared his bewilderment, “and yet it was only three days ago that we met on the road from Tours.”
He seized a torch from the hand of a bystander and flashed it into my face.
“My word, citizen!” he cried. “Small wonder! You looked like a bridegroom, then—and now— What have you been doing with yourself?”
“I have been trying to escape being murdered,” I rejoined. “And it seems that I am not going to escape after all.”