“Yes!” said he, with an oath, “the brigand has got away; though how he cut the cords on his wrists, or by what means he sprang from the charrette to the road, the devil must answer. Ha! there they are firing away after him. The only use of their powder is to show the fellow where they are.”
“I would not change places with our captain this evening,” cried one of the gendarmerie. “Returning to Paris without the red beard—”
“Ma foi, you're not wrong there. It will be a heavy reckoning for him with dark Savary; and as to taking a Breton in a wood—”
The word to march interrupted the colloquy, and again we moved forward.
By some strange sympathy I cannot account for, I felt glad that the chief had made his escape. The gallantry of his defence, the implicit obedience yielded him by the others, had succeeded in establishing an interest for him in my mind; and the very last act of daring courage by which he effected his liberty increased the feeling. By what an easy transition, too, do we come to feel for those whose fate has any similarity with our own! The very circumstance of common misfortune is a binding link; and thus I was not without an anxious hope that the chief might succeed in his escape, though, had I known his intrigue or his intentions, such interest had scarcely found a place in my heart.
Such reflections as these led me to think how great must be the charm to the human mind of overcoming difficulty or confronting danger, when even for those of whom we know nothing we can feel, and feel warmly, when they stand before us in such a light as this. Heroism and bravery appeal to every nature; and bad must be the cause in which they are exerted, before we can venture to think ill of those who possess them.
The lamps were beginning to be lighted as we reached the Barriére, and halted to permit the officer of the party to make his report of who we were. The formality soon finished, we defiled along the Boulevard, followed by a crowd, that, increasing each moment, at last occupied the entire road, and made our progress slow and difficult. While the curiosity of the people to catch sight of the prisoners demanded all the vigilance of the guards to prevent it, a sad and most appalling stillness pervaded the whole multitude, and I could hear a murmur as they went that it was Generals Moreau and Pichegru who were taken.
At length we halted, and I could see that the foremost charrette was entering a low archway, over which a massive portcullis hung. The gloomy shadow of a dark, vast mass, that rose against the inky sky, lowered above the wall, and somehow seemed to me as if well known.
“This is the Temple?” said I to the gendarme on my right.
A nod was the reply, and a half-expressive look that seemed to say, “In that word you have said your destiny.”