“I would,” I said; “but I’ll take care somehow to warn him, so that he shall run no such risks. For I would not have him bitten for the world.”
“Of course not—a darling?” said Clara, mockingly.
And then no more was said.
But matters went unfortunately, and I had no opportunity for warning poor Achille, who was attacked in his turn by the wretch of a dog—who really seemed, as Clara said, to have a dislike to everything French; while, by a kind of clairvoyance, the brute must have known that poor Achille was coming. For, by a strange coincidence—not the first either that occurred during my stay at the Cedars—the creature managed to get loose, and lay in wait just outside the shrubbery until he came, when he flew at him furiously, as I will tell.
Chapter Twenty.
Memory the Twentieth—The New Prisoner.
I had no idea that Achille was well enough to go on with the lessons, neither had anybody in the house; for Miss Furness had just summoned us all to the French class, and my mind was, to a certain extent, free from care and pre-occupation, when I heard a most horrible snarling and yelling, and crying for help. Of course I darted in agony to the window, when it was just as I had anticipated—just as I knew, by means of the electric current existing between our hearts—Achille was in peril; for the horrible dog had attacked him, and there he was in full flight.
As I reached the window, the wretch leaped upon him, seizing his coat, and tearing away a great piece of the skirt; but the next moment poor Achille made a bound, and caught at one of the boughs of the cedar he was beneath; and there he hung, with the horrible dog snapping and jumping at his toes every time they came low enough.