As the cart came within range, the hussars at the horse-trough began to call out pleasantries to the grenadier driver: what was he taking to market; it was true he looked better suited to a farm than the army, and so on.
"You look like a performing circus!" retorted the grenadier. "We have a prisoner in here; that's what we've got." Yet he had his musket idly between his knees and a straw in his mouth.
"We've got one, too!" replied the hussars. Then the cart came abreast. On its tailboard, let down nearly level at the back, was visible an inert head and shoulders. And the sun of the Mayday evening shone on hair that Laurent knew, hair that fell back from a face like death—like tragic death . . . Aymar de la Rocheterie's.
Laurent gave a sharp exclamation, and the sorrel responded to the half-automatic pressure of his knees. A hussar at once seized his arm, and a pistol was pressed into his ear, with an enquiry as to whether he wished to join "that one" in the cart with a bullet in his head? He did not answer; he was too stunned. But he made no further movement.
The cart rumbled slowly past with its burden. L'Oiseleur was plainly quite unconscious, if not dead; his head rolled slightly with the comfortless motion of the conveyance. On the mortal pallor of his face there showed up a faint smear or two of blood, and the white dust of the country road had drifted into his loosened hair, together with some bits of the straw on which he had been laid. A dark green uniform coat similar to that in which Laurent had last seen him was flung over him, but his shirt had obviously been removed, and one shoulder at least was swathed round with a bloody wrapping. And the sunlight showed how deeply stained was the coat also.
Before Laurent had recovered from his stupefaction the cart had passed. All the hussars turned in their saddles and looked after it, oddly silent, except one irrepressible spirit who shouted out an enquiry as to why they were going like a funeral.
"To avoid one, son of an idiot!" called back the man with the musket. "We happen to want this parishioner alive. It's a damned nuisance, going at this pace, but if we hurry—" He made an expressive gesture.
"Where are you taking him to?"
But either the soldier did not hear, or did not answer, because the hussar officer came at that moment out of the inn shouting an order. And hastily, with much jingling of accoutrements, the patrol began to move off up the sunny street in the opposite direction, Laurent in the midst.
He was feeling very dismal. Rumour was incorrect, and L'Oiseleur had paid in person for his defeat—and paid heavily. He had fallen with his men after all . . . no, hardly, because the affair at the bridge was three days old, and the blood on him was fresh. He must have been tracked down afterwards . . . horrible! But how strange that there was no escort with the cart—for though L'Oiseleur himself was only too obviously in no condition to escape from it, there must always be the risk of a rescue so long as any of those devoted followers of his were at large. Or did the absence of an adequate guard signify that the whole of his remaining force had since been wiped out—and was that the meaning of the look, almost of horror, which had persisted even in unconsciousness? Laurent could not get that look out of his head, nor the way the cart had jolted. Surely, if they wanted him kept alive, that soldier might have held him in his arms; surely——