The marquis walked back toward the horses, while his servants and Guillaume's took up the dead body and covered it with a cloak. But when they looked for the prisoner, they looked in vain.
They had not taken the precaution to bind his legs. Taking advantage of a moment of excitement and confusion, when the servants, disturbed concerning the result of the duel, had left the horses in charge of two of their number, who had had much difficulty in holding them, he had taken flight, or rather had stolen away and hidden somewhere in the ravine.
"Never fear, monsieur le marquis," said Aristandre. "A man with his hands bound can neither run very fast nor conceal himself very skilfully; I promise you that I will catch him; I will undertake to do it. Ride home and rest; you have well earned it!"
"No," said the marquis; "I must see that murderer again. Do two of you search for him, while I and the other two ride with Monsieur d'Ars to the Carmelite convent."
D'Alvimar's body was laid across his horse, and Guillaume's servants assisted Bois-Doré's to transport it.
Bois-Doré rode on ahead with Guillaume, to have the gates of the town opened, if necessary, for it was nearly ten o'clock.
On the road, Bois-Doré furnished his young kinsman with such precise details concerning his brother's death, the recovery of his nephew, the episode of the Catalan knife, the admission extorted from the culprit by his indignation, and finally the testimony of the ring, that Guillaume could not persist in upholding his friend's honor. He admitted that he really knew very little of him, having become intimate with him on slight acquaintance, and that at Bourges there had come to his ears some reports, far from honorable if they were true, concerning the duel which had forced the Spaniard to disappear. Monsieur Sciarra Martinengo was said to have been struck by him, contrary to all the laws of honor, at a moment when he had asked for a suspension of the combat, his sword being broken.
Guillaume had refused to credit that charge; but Bois-Doré's revelations made him look upon it as more serious, and he promised to go to Briantes the next morning to inspect the evidence, and make the acquaintance of the beautiful Mario.
[XXXIII]
In proportion as conviction entered his mind, Guillaume became expansive and friendly with the marquis, no less from a sense of natural equity than from an inborn tendency to be governed absolutely by his latest impression.