CHAPTER XXVI.
IN THE SNARE.
Had St. Georges followed the impulse that first occurred to him when he recognised the man André, he would have made some excuse for not remaining a night in Bayeux, but would have proceeded at once on his journey to Troyes—though not to Paris as he had said, only with a desire to throw dust in his late oppressor's eyes. For to Paris he had no intention of going under any circumstances, deeming it likely to be full of danger to him. There he would be known to countless military men; he might be seen at any moment and recognised; and the result would, in all likelihood, be ruinous. He meant, however, to proceed some distance toward it and then to strike into another road, and so, leaving the capital a little to the north of him, reach Troyes. He thought he could do this by branching off at Evreux and passing through Fontainebleau, but at present he was not even sure that this would be the direction to take—was, indeed, uncertain if such a course would lead him to the goal he sought, though he believed it would.
But the impulse to quit André's auberge had to be resisted at once as soon as it arose—to follow it would be fraught with, possibly, as much danger as remaining there for a night. For if André really suspected who he was, he would not permit him to quit Bayeux—not at least without extorting something from him for his silence—while, if he could not absolutely remember him, his suspicions would be so much aroused by St. Georges's suddenly altered plans as, perhaps, to absolutely verify them, or to cause him to have the stranger denied exit from the city. Therefore, at all hazards, he must remain the intended night. It was the only way in which to avoid aiding the fellow's hazy recollections, which, after all, might not have taken actual form by the next day's dawn. And there was another thing: however much he might overmaster Nature sufficiently to be able to proceed without rest, the horse could not do so. He must, he decided, remain, and trust to chance.
"What a miserable, what an untoward fate is mine!" he murmured; "could Fortune play me worse? Of all men to light on, that it must be this brute—whom, if I could do so in safety, I would slay for his countless cruelties to me and others! It is hard, hard, hard! There are thousands of inns in France to which I might have gone without meeting any who could recognise me, yet at the very first I stumble on I encounter one who knows me, and knows what I have been. A galley slave!—a man doomed for life, while there, to that brutal work; a man who, since he has escaped, is doomed to death. Ah! well! I am in God's hands. As he has protected me before, may he do so again!"
He threw himself upon the bed as he uttered his little prayer—he must sleep at all cost. Even though André should denounce him to-morrow ere he could quit Bayeux—even though he should have to join la chaine again on its road to the galleys—ay! even though the scaffold was to witness his death in the morning, his wornout frame must rest. He had been without sleep for now almost the whole time that had elapsed since Tourville's fleet had first loomed up before the English; it seemed to him that he could scarce recall when he slept last. And what terrible events he had gone through since that time!
Had he tried to keep awake, he could scarce have done so; as it was he made no such effort. Wrapped in the coverlet, the sword unbuckled but grasped in his hand, he stretched his body out and gave himself up to slumber—slumber deep and heavy as that of a drugged man.
He would not have awakened when he did, would have slept on, perhaps, for hours longer, had not a continued deep, droning, noise—interrupted now and again by a shriller one—at last succeeded in thoroughly rousing him—a noise that came as it seemed from below the bed he lay on, and was only interrupted and drowned once by the booming of the cathedral clock striking three. Three! and he had lain down in early evening had slept for hours. Yet how weary he still felt! It was as yet quite dark—the dawn would not come for another hour, he knew—what could those sounds below mean? He raised himself on his elbow to listen and hear more plainly.
At first he could distinguish nothing but the deep hum, broken now and again by the sharper, more metallic sound; but as he bent over the bed—being now quite wide awake and with his senses naturally very acute—he recognised what those sounds were. And more especially was he enabled to do so from the fact that the planks of the floor were not joined very closely together—or had come apart since they were first laid down—as he had observed when he entered the room the day before.