The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure

by Robert Neilson Stephens

The three horses were instantly turned into the lane. The abbey was now used as a barn. The wide door was barred on the outside with a piece of wood, merely to keep it from being opened by the wind. The men dismounted and led the horses into the dark interior, which smelled of hay and grain. They closed the door, but there was no way of bolting it on the inside. The women now dismounted, and the party stood in silence, trusting that their horses would not in any way betray their presence.

As fate would have it, the two forces of horsemen—the one commanded by the officer who had let Dick escape, the other by the Baron von Sungen—met near the mouth of the lane leading to the barn. Torches were lighted, and the two leaders conferred for some time. Then Von Sungen, who was not only the superior in rank but was also the more recently from Cassel and had the Landgrave's latest orders, got off his horse, seized a torch from one of the bearers, and started up the lane, followed afoot by six of his men.

The gentlemen in the barn saw this movement through chinks of the door.

"It is Von Sungen," said Romberg. "He must have a strong personal interest in your capture, that he should come to search with his own eyes."

He and Dick drew their swords. Antoine held ready a pistol, which he had carried in his saddle-bag on his Spangenberg journey.

Von Sungen's concern seemed indeed very great, for so rapidly he strode that he reached the barn a dozen feet ahead of his men. He opened the door, and thrust in his head, preceding it with his torch.

Before any one could make a movement, the attention of all was drawn by Catherine, who said to Dick and Romberg:

"Flee for your lives, gentlemen! Don't heed me. I shall be dead before he can lay a hand upon me."

And she held to her lips the phial that Dick had left on her table in the palace.

Dick ran to grasp her hand, and Von Sungen cried out to her, in the utmost alarm, "For God's sake, not that, mademoiselle!" He, too, would have rushed in to prevent her, but his breast was menaced by the sword of Romberg.