"Hier sur le pont d'Avignon
J'ai oui chanter la belle
Lon, la."
It was only for an instant, then it died like a summer echo, and he knew that St. Luc was gone. An immense weight rolled from him. He had done what he should have done, but the result that he feared had not followed.
"I can find nothing, sir," said the sentinel, who recognized in Robert one of superior rank.
"Nor I, but you saw the figure, did you not?"
"I did, sir. 'Twas more like a shadow, but 'twas a man, I'll swear."
Robert was glad to have the sentinel's testimony, because in another moment the revelers were upon him, making sport of him for his false alarm, and asserting that not his eyes but the punch he had drunk had seen a French spy.
"I scarce tasted the punch," said Robert, "and the soldier here is witness that I spoke true."
A farther and longer search was organized, but the Frenchman had vanished into the thinnest of thin air. As Robert walked with Willet and Tayoga back to the tavern, the hunter said:
"I suppose it was St. Luc?"
"Yes, but why did you think it was he?"