"Bring them all along! bring them all along!" cried a thousand voices, and without being listened to in any thing that she had to say, Clémence, clinging as closely as she could to her attendant, was hurried out along the narrow passages of the prison, which were now flashing with manifold lights, into the dark little square which was found filled with people. Multitudes of lights were in all the windows round, and, covering the prison, a strong band of men were drawn up facing the opposite street. A number of persons on horseback were in front of the band, and, by the lights which were flashing from the torches in the street, one commanding figure appeared to the eyes of Clémence at the very moment she was brought forth from the doors of the prison, stretching out his hand towards the men behind him, and shouting, in a voice that she could never forget, though now that voice was raised into tones of loud command, such as she had never heard it use. "Hold! hold! the man that fires a shot dies! Not one unnecessary shot, not one unnecessary blow!"
Clémence strove to turn that way, and to fly towards the hotel where Monsieur de Rouvré lodged; but she was borne away by the stream, which seemed to be now retreating from the town. At the same moment an armed man laid gently hold of her cloak, seeing her efforts to free herself, and said,--
"This way, lady, this way. It is madness for you to think to go back now. You are with friends. You are with one who will protect you with his life, for your kindness to the murdered and the lost."
She turned round to gaze upon him, not recollecting his voice; and his face, in the indistinct light, seemed to her like a face remembered in a dream, connected with the awful scene of the preaching on the moor, and the dark piece of water, and the dying girl killed by the shot of the dragoons. Ere she could ask any questions, however, the stream of people hurried her on, and in a few minutes she was out of Thouars, and in the midst of the open country round.
CHAPTER VII.
[THE DEATH OF THE PERSECUTED.]
When the flight had been conducted for about two miles in the midst of the perfect darkness which surrounded the whole scene--for the lights and torches which had appeared in the town had been extinguished with the exception of one or two, on leaving it--the voice which had before addressed Clémence de Marly again spoke nearer, apparently giving command, as some one in authority over the others.
"Where is the litter?" he exclaimed.--"Where is the litter that was brought for the good minister? Bring it hither: he will be more easy in that."
Clémence had kept as near as she could to the spot where Claude de l'Estang was carried, and she now heard him answer in a faint and feeble voice,--
"Do not move me: in pity do not move me. My limbs are so strained and dislocated by the rack, that the slightest movement pains me. Carry me as I am, if you will; but move me not from this bed."