"Sweetheart, for our lives!" I laid the reins low on her neck, and we were off with a long swinging stride that soon left even Black Hawk and Papin far behind, though they were urging their good horses to the utmost.
There was not a moment to be lost, for I could see that the savages were nearing the junction of the lane and the Rue de l'Église, and we must pass that point before them and ride some twenty paces down the Rue de l'Église before we should reach the gates and a safe refuge behind the walls of Émigré's Retreat. I did not cease to urge Fatima by my voice, though never touching her reins. One arm held mademoiselle securely, and my right hand lay on the holster of my pistol, ready for instant service.
Out of the Rue des Granges we shot like a bolt, into the steep and rough lane leading down the hill. Had I not held mademoiselle so firmly I think that swift swerve at the sharp corner might have unseated us both. Faster and faster we flew, like a swallow on the wing, Fatima's dainty feet as surely placed among the rocks and holes of the rough road as if she had been pacing in Rotten Row. Well she knew that a misstep of hers now might mean death to all three of us, and well she knew that her master trusted her perfectly.
I could feel mademoiselle's heart fluttering like a caged bird for terror; my own was beating like a trip-hammer, for I was near enough now to perceive that the savages too were redoubling their efforts and it was still a chance which of us would reach the corner of the Rue de l'Église first.
"Faster, Sweetheart, faster!" I urged in an agony of apprehension as I pressed my knees close to Fatima's hot sides, and felt her breath beginning to come in long laboring moans as my great weight (with mademoiselle's added one, which might yet prove the last feather) began to tell on her. Bravely she responded to my voice and stretched out farther and faster at every stride, and in another moment, with another tremendous swerve, we had turned the corner into the Rue de l'Église with the foremost of the savages not twenty feet behind us. I expected nothing less than a bullet in my back, and was glad indeed that mademoiselle was in front of me, fully shielded by my broad shoulders, for I knew whatever befell me Fatima would carry mademoiselle into the garden and to the very door of Émigré's Retreat before any savage could possibly reach her. But I felt no bullet, nor did any whistle by my ears, and I wondered why, until I saw, what the savage possibly saw too in the dim light, that mademoiselle (whose head had been cowering on my breast like a child in great terror trying to hide from the sight of danger) had, as we turned into the Rue de l'Église, raised her head and looked boldly over my shoulder.
I have no doubt the savage feared to shoot, lest he should hit that white face, and I did not doubt that was mademoiselle's plan, to use herself as a shield for me. I was very angry with her, but I had only time to draw her head roughly down on my shoulder again when we were within the gates and, in a dozen mighty strides, at the very door of Émigré's Retreat.
At the sound of clattering hoofs, Narcisse and half a dozen servants, among them mademoiselle's maid, Clotilde, came running out on the gallery. I sprang from my horse and lifted mademoiselle down, in too great haste to be gentle, I fear.
"Take your mistress into the house and bar every door and window!" I cried sharply. "The savages are after us!"
It needed but that word "savages" to lend wings of terror to the usually slow and lazy movements of the negroes. With shrieks of women and shouts of men, they dragged mademoiselle into the house, and I heard the hasty putting up of bars. Then I turned to meet that one savage who was so far in advance and who must by this time have reached the gates. I had no fear, now that I was free of mademoiselle, for I felt myself good for two or three of them, and I could even now hear the clattering hoofs of Josef Papin's and Black Hawk's horse coming down the lane, and they were a host in themselves. But by the time I had reached the gate there was a great noise of shouts and firing and wild halloos at the corner, and I ran on, knowing that Papin and Black Hawk must have met the savages, and knowing that the two would be outnumbered and greatly in need of my assistance.
But I had hardly got into the thick of the mêlée, cutting and slashing with my sword for fear a shot would go astray and hit one of my friends should I use my pistol, when the savages suddenly turned tail and ran off, disappearing in the night like shadows. For a moment I thought it was my prowess that had put them to flight, and I began in my heart to plume myself thereon. But only for a moment, for up the Rue des Granges and down the steep lane there came charging the belated troops of Spanish horsemen (they had stupidly been scouring the other end of the village, it seems), and would have charged full upon us, no doubt,—since in the dark one could not tell friend from foe,—had not young Papin called out in Spanish that we were friends and belonged to Dr. Saugrain's party. Whereupon the officer halted long enough to inquire in which direction the savages had fled, and with many a round Spanish oath that he would not leave one of the red dogs alive if he had to follow them to Cape Girardeau, he led his troop clattering off toward the stockade. And no sooner had they disappeared than down the steep lane came the rest of the party, Madame Saugrain half dead with fright (for she had heard the sounds of firing and of fighting, and feared the worst for Pelagie), the doughty doctor and my captain not a little disappointed that they should have missed the fray, and Yorke almost as much so, since it had turned out to be such an easy victory.