“Pooh! A detour might circumvent them. The Marquise might go as far north as Roubaix or Comines, or as fair south as Rocroy, or even Charlemont. Name of a name, but it is more than likely!” he exclaimed, with sudden conviction. “What do you say, Caron?”
“That you rave,” answered La Boulaye coldly.
“Well, we shall see. I will despatch a message to my men, bidding them spread themselves as far north as Comiines and as far south as Charlemont. Should the fugitives have made such a detour as I suggested there will be ample time to take them.”
La Boulaye still contemned the notion with a fine show of indifference, but Tardivet held to his purpose, and presently despatched the messengers as he had proposed. At that Caron felt his pulses quickening with anxiety for Mademoiselle. These astute measures must inevitably result im her capture—for was it not at Roubaix that he had bidden her await him? There was but one thing to be done, to ride out himself to meet her along the road from Soignies to Oudenarde, and to escort her into France. She should go ostensibly as his prisoner, and he was confident that not all the brigands of Captain Tardivet would suffice to take her from him.
Accordingly, he announced his intention of resuming his interrupted journey, and ordered his men to saddle and make ready. Meanwhile, having taken measures to recapture the Marquise should she have doubled back into France, Charlot was now organising an expedition to scour the road to Prussia, against the possibility of her having adhered to her original intention of journeying that way. Thus he was determined to take no risks, and leave her no loophole of escape.
Tardivet would have set himself at the head of the six horsemen of this expedition, but that La Boulaye interfered, and this time to some purpose. He assured the Captain that he was still far from recovered, and that to spend a day in the saddle might have the gravest of consequences for him.
“If the occasion demanded it,” he concluded, “I should myself urge you to chance the matter of your health. But the occasion does not. The business is of the simplest, and your men can do as much without you as they could with you.”
Tardivet permitted himself to be persuaded, and Caron had again good cause to congratulate himself that he had remained behind to influence him. He opined that the men, failing to pick up the trail at Charleroi, would probably go on as far as Dinant before abandoning the chase; then they would return to Boisvert to announce their failure, and by that time it would be too late to reorganise the pursuit. On the other hand, had Tardivet accompanied them, upon failing to find any trace of the Marquise at Charleroi, La Boulaye could imagine him pushing north along the Sambre, and pressing the peasantry into his service to form an impassable cordon.
And so, having won his way in this at least, and seen the six men set out under the command of Tardivet's trusted Guyot, Caron took his leave of the Captain. He was on the very point of setting out when a courier dashed up to the door of the “Eagle,” and called for a cup of wine. As it was brought him he asked the hostess whether the Citizen-deputy La Boulaye, Commissioner to the army of Dumouriez, had passed that way. Upon being informed that the Deputy was even then within the inn, the courier got down from his horse and demanded to be taken to him.
The hostess led him into the common-room, and pointed out the Deputy. The courier heaved a sigh of relief, and removing his sodden cloak he bade the landlady get it dried and prepare him as stout a meal as her hostelry afforded.