"But how, how, how? Where can we fly? All Languedoc, all the south, is blocked with the King's, with your, troops----"
"Nay, the Camisards can help you. Can creep like snakes across the frontier to Switzerland, to the Duke of Savoy's dominions. You must go--at once. You are free, I say," and he stamped his foot in his excitement. "Go, go, go. I set you free, annul this trial, declare it void. Only go, for God's sake go, and find her ere it is too late."
"I need no second bidding," Martin answered, his heart beating high within him at the very thought of flying to Urbaine, of seeing her again and of clasping her to his arms, and, once across the frontier, of never more being parted from her; of his own freedom which would thereby be assured he thought not one jot, the full joy of possessing Urbaine forever eclipsing the delight of that newly restored liberty entirely; "desire naught else. Only, how will you answer for it?"
"Answer!" Baville exclaimed. "Answer! To whom shall I answer but to Louis? And though I pay with my head for my treachery, if treachery it is, she will be safe from the revelation of my fault. That before all."
"When shall I depart?" Martin asked briefly.
"Now, to-night, at once. Lose no moment. A horse shall be prepared for you. Also a pass that will take you through any of the King's forces you may encounter on the road to the mountains. Once there, you are known to the Camisards and--and she will be restored to you."
"Will they let me pass the gate?"
"Let you pass the gate! Pass the gate! Ay, since I go with you as far as that. Let us see who will dare to stop you."
An hour later Martin was a free man.
Free, that is, in so far that he had passed the Porte des Carmes and was once more upon the road toward the mountains, toward where Urbaine Ducaire was. Yet with all around him the troops of Montrevel, the field marshal having sallied forth that morning intent upon more slaughter and bloodshed, and with, still farther off, the Camisards under Cavalier in one division and under Roland in another, descending, if all accounts were true, upon Nîmes and Alais with a full intention of avenging mercilessly the burning of their brethren in the mill.