Drexel thought of the story that lantern would reveal: the coatless gendarme and his own discarded coat. “You do it,” he said to his fellow, again coughing. “I’m choking.”
He hurried out into the open air. Ahead of him he saw the captain, and he put his hand to his face as though to shield it from the scorching heat.
“What’s the matter?” Nadson demanded.
Drexel coughed violently. “I can’t stand it,” he gasped in a muffled voice.
“Well, my lady, why didn’t you bring your smelling salts?” the captain demanded sarcastically, and proceeded to swear at him for a weak-stomached coward. Then he gave Drexel a violent shove. “Get out of here, and join the guard about the prisoners!”
Drexel hurried across the court and out the gateway. By the curb stood two sleighs, in the front one Freeman, handcuffed, in the rear one Sonya, and about them stood a solid circle of gendarmes, and beyond these was a silent, unarmed crowd glowering helplessly on. Drexel trembled with a fierce impulse to hurl himself upon the guard, but reason told him that course would help Sonya none at all, and would be the end of him, and the end of any aid he might give her should he escape.
A roar from the blazing house informed him that his trick had been discovered. He coughed. “I’m going to get a drink,” he remarked to the guards, and walked quickly to the nearest corner. Fortunately the street was empty; such people as were abroad were before the entrance of the court. He held up the skirts of his long coat and sprang away at his best speed. At the next corner he turned again, and at the next he turned once more. Luckily here stood a sleigh waiting a fare.
Into this he leaped. “Quick—I’m after an escaped prisoner!” he cried to the driver.
The man lashed his horse into a gallop, and at Drexel’s direction they sped for the Neva, crossed it, and entered the broad Nevsky Prospect, where they were quickly lost among the hundreds of darting sleighs. Here Drexel dismissed his sleigh, took another and drove southward to near the Marianskia Theatre. Here he again dismissed the sleigh, and once more he took another and this time ordered himself driven into the northeastern part of the city.
He felt that for the time at least he was safe against capture.