Under some circumstances I might not have been very profoundly grieved at the idea of losing his company; for in general I had fully sufficient reliance on myself to be perfectly at my ease when I was quite alone. In the present case, however, as I strongly suspected that his design was not to deprive me of his society for long, but rather to restore it, augmented by the company of the officers from Rennes, I determined to entreat his stay with me; and, as the strongest inducement that I could hold out to him, I took one of the pistols from my saddle-bow, and levelling it at his head, with the distance of about ten yards between us, I ordered him to turn his horse up the St. Malo road without more ado, or I would shoot him on the spot. Though I saw him turn very pale at this intimation, he affected to laugh, declaring that I must be in jest; and I thought I perceived that he hesitated, whether to obey or to take his chance, and set spurs to his horse. The clicking of the lock of the pistol, judiciously timed, brought his doubts to a conclusion, and gave the preponderance to obedience. He said that he would obey, of course, if I positively directed him, for that the Duke had given him strict orders to follow my commands implicitly.
"Extremely well you have obeyed!" cried I; "but, without farther words, turn your horse up the road, for I am not to be trifled with any longer."
"Well, well," he replied, as he slowly drew his bridle in the direction that I pointed out, "it was only for your own good I spoke; and if you will take a bad and dangerous road, the consequence be upon your own head."
As I thought that there was no use in driving him to desperation, I did not choose to let him know how intimately acquainted I was with the good designs he entertained in my favour; but pausing, pistol in hand, till I saw him fully launched upon the St. Malo road, I then wheeled my horse and followed, determined to keep all my discoveries to my own breast till such time as I could confide them to Monsieur de Villardin. As soon as I became sure that retreat was impossible, and that my companion must go forward on the road which I pointed out, I dropped my hostile attitude, replaced my pistol in the holster, and joining him again, endeavoured to enter into conversation as if nothing had happened to disturb our equanimity; but, I believe, in this I expected more from human nature than human nature could afford; the man was disappointed of a good thousand crowns, besides what he had called the pickings of my saddle-bags; and he likewise laboured under the mortification of having been outwitted and bullied by a mere boy; so that he well might be, what he really was, savage and sullen for many miles of the road. In addition to his other causes of wrath, I soon perceived that he was not without some apprehension that I had discovered his designs; and I doubted not, that if he could have made himself perfectly sure that such was the case, he would have soon brought the matter between us to a struggle for life. I was accustomed to such things, however, and I did not make myself at all uneasy on that account; but keeping constantly on my guard,--for there is never any telling what may happen next in such affairs, I rode on, taking care that an interval of two or three yards should always exist between his hand and my bridle-rein; and where the road was not sufficiently wide enough for that purpose, I made him go on before, and followed a few steps behind.
That road, however, deserves a fuller description, for it was as pleasant a road as ever I travelled in my life, excepting a few spots, of each a mile or a mile and a half in length, where a sandy soil rendered it heavy and fatiguing. A little beyond the place where we first entered upon it, a low stone wall marked the ancient boundary of a forest. Even at that time, however, the large trees had retreated more than a mile from the extreme limit of the wood; and the space that intervened between the wall and the real forest, was covered entirely with the sort of brushwood, or, as the French call it, taillis, which rises on the cutting down of larger timber. This gave us a fair view of the kind of ground over which the forest extended, which was of so broken and irregular a nature--full of pits, dells, banks, and ravines, that it would have required infinite labour to render it productive of aught but that which then covered it. After the road began to wind in amongst the higher trees, some of which appeared of great antiquity, we lost all sight of the surrounding country, except where, every now and then, the ground had been cleared by some accidental circumstance, or where the track that we were pursuing ascended to some commanding height. On these occasions, indeed, we sometimes obtained a very splendid view beyond the forest, over tracks of rich and cultivated land; and as I was beginning about that time to find out that the face of nature was a very beautiful thing, and to enjoy the aspect of a fine country with a sort of romantic delight, I often paused to gaze for a moment on any prospect that thus caught my eye. While thus engaged, my companion generally rode on in sulky silence; but I never suffered him to go far without my society, lest any of the roads which intersected the forest, and which I could not, of course, be expected to know, should afford him an opportunity of deviating from the prescribed track before I thought fit to permit him to do so.
I had just made one of these pauses, and my companion had just ridden on, in the manner which I have described, when, on looking after him to see how far he had proceeded, I thought I perceived a brighter gleam of sunshine than usually enlivened the gloom of the wood, streaming across the road a little beyond the point at which he had arrived. Suspecting that it might be shining down a cross road, I set spurs to my horse, and was nearly up with him before he reached the little brake. I had just time, however, to gain a more accurate knowledge of the spot, and to perceive that it was a gap, but not a road, down which the light was streaming, when there came a quick, bright flash from the wood, and at the same moment the groom fell headlong to the ground, while his horse dashed on, masterless, along the track before us, and my charger, after rearing violently, rolled over, dyeing the sand with its blood.
These sort of surprises are generally followed by a speedy explanation; and the appearance of four stout, well-dressed, good-looking gentlemen, with firelocks in their hands, pistols in their girdles, and swords by their sides, at once gave me a clear insight into the whole affair. As my poor horse, panting in the agonies of death, lay heavy upon my foot and ankle, which he had crushed beneath him in his fall, I was in no condition to offer any resistance, even had it been wise to do so against such superior numbers. The groom, indeed, was still less capable of opposing any measures that our friends with the firelocks might judge expedient, as the ball, which was probably intended for his horse, had deviated a little from its course, and gone right through his head. I lay quite still also, for in all the many conflicts of one kind or another that I had witnessed, I had always remarked, that men, in working themselves up to such an action as that which our assailants had just committed, engender in their own bosoms a great deal more fury than is at all necessary to the accomplishment of their exact purpose. This superabundant energy breaks upon the first object opposed to it; but it soon evaporates, and those who would stab you the moment after they have fired the gun, or rushed to the charge, will be a great deal humanised within five minutes after the struggle is over.
The robbers rushed immediately upon the groom like hungry wolves; and turning him over, for he had fallen upon his face, took a hurried glance at his countenance. "Diable!" cried one of our assailants, as they did so, "we have made a mistake, Messieurs. This is not the courier, after all. Peste! you have killed him, too, Serjeant. Why the devil did you fire so high?"
"You have done the same for the other, Hubert," replied the one he addressed.
"I hope not," said the first; "I had his horse fair enough; but let us see."