"He is dead!"
Chaudoreille was stunned and bewildered; he still held his sword in his hand and looked at everyone as if distracted. Gautier-Garguille took him by the arm and led him away, saying,—
"Save yourself; you have killed the son of the King of Cochin-China."
Chaudoreille listened no further; he went on his way, left Paris and darted across the fields and the marshes; the three hours he had spent in running in the sun had not strained his legs, he felt no fatigue; fear lent him wings, and he did not stop until he believed that he had escaped the pursuit of which he imagined himself to be the object. It may seem astonishing, perhaps, that the chevalier had not recognized, in the three men who had stopped him on the boulevard, the three comedians whose performances were then in great vogue, and who permitted themselves a thousand licenses that the Parisians authorized, and which delighted even the great noblemen. But when Chaudoreille had any money he passed the greater part of his time in gambling houses, and had been but rarely to the theatre called the Hôtel de Bourgogne; besides, Turlupin and Gautier-Garguille were so adept in the art of changing their physiognomies that it was difficult to recognize them unless one had often witnessed their performances.
The fugitive had stopped to breathe for a moment, he looked timidly about him and recognized the locality; he was at the end of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, near the Vallée de Fécamp, and he perceived about three hundred paces from him the Marquis de Villebelle's little house.
Chaudoreille had fasted since the evening before, he was overcome with fatigue and believed himself menaced by the greatest dangers. In such circumstances he forgot that the barber had forbidden him to go there and decided to ring at the little house and seek refuge.
Collecting his strength he turned towards the dwelling; he rang the bell, and Marcel opened the door almost immediately.
"What, is it you?" said he in astonishment. "Did the marquis or M. Touquet send you here?"
Before answering, Chaudoreille entered the garden, and closed the door after him.
"But what the devil is the matter with you?" said Marcel. "What are you doing here?—and your face is in such a state, all in a cold sweat; one would believe, on my word, that you'd all the sergeants of Paris at your heels."