CHAPTER III
FIRE AND SACK
My first dismayed instinct was to pull Roland back upon his haunches, my second to urge him through the wood by the shortest path he could find. But Martin called me back.
"Not that way, Monsieur Gaspard. Never look rogues in the face if you can see their backs, and perhaps old Babette has news."
Caution was wisest, and I followed him upstream. Five minutes' delay could matter little to Solignac, and Babette's curiosity might be trusted to have kept her informed of Jan Meert's doings. But we drew the copse blank, though we hunted through it, crying her name cautiously, there was no answer. To me silence was assurance. Jan Meert and his fellow-rogues had left the chateau, having done their worst, and the way was clear. No doubt we would find her waiting helplessly before the ruin wrought by the Hollander, for she, too, loved Solignac. The wonder was we had not already heard her outcry.
"Come," said I, driving Roland through the bushes.
"Better leave the horses behind," advised Martin.
But I would not.
"No," I answered curtly. "If Jan Meert is yonder we shall need their legs; if not, why leave them?"
The time, be it remembered, was the verge of summer, almost summer itself, with the foliage full and green, so it was not until the trees thinned that I got my first sight of Solignac, a grey bulk of weather-beaten stone between the columns of the oaks and pines. But it was only when we had fairly cleared the wood that it dawned upon me what and how much I owed the Hollander.