And the troopers broke into coarse laughter at my words, while Truchepot, the man who had taken my sword, mocked me to his fellows.
“He pledges his honor,” he said. “Monsieur would perhaps like his sword returned to him, to wear as the Prince is wearing his.”
Whereat they laughed again, and I bit my lip in silence; and then there was some one standing before me, some one who had heard my appeal and its answer, and I hung my head in shame and utter abasement. It was Marie.
“May God forgive you,” she said, and with a divine pity in her voice she added, “as I do.”
I did not dare meet her look, but half turned away with a groan; yet something in the scene stilled the gibing tongues of the troopers, and they pressed between us in rough kindliness, so surrounding me that for the moment I was hidden from view.
I was mounted on a spare horse. Perhaps it was one that had belonged to the dead Badehorn—I cannot say—and with a trooper on my left holding the reins, and one on my right, a cocked pistol in his hand, I was put almost in the rear of the party. Then followed a few quick commands, the trumpets pealed, and we were on the way back to Orleans. We went at a smart trot, for it was evidently the intention of our captors to reach the city ere sundown, and, bright as the day had become, the lights of sunset were already showing in the west.
Of the other prisoners I could see nothing except Coqueville, and he rode almost immediately before me, but with this difference, that his hands were free and his horse was not led. I do not know why, but I kept watching him with a strange fascination as he rode on, apparently in the deepest dejection, his head held down between his shoulders. I knew his mount too. It was his own mare, Lisette, and she also seemed to be possessed with the same despair as her master, for she lagged and hung back, until we in the rear almost rode over her quarters. But notwithstanding this, she still kept going slower and more slowly, her tail switching nervously to and fro, and her ears laid back over her head. Seeing this, the men on each side of Lisette exchanged some rough joke about feminine temper, and closed in on Coqueville, forcing his nag on. And then I noticed that his left foot was out of the stirrup, and stretching his leg outward with a quick, rapid motion, he spurred the trooper’s horse next to him. It swerved slightly, leaving a space between them. Quick as thought Coqueville touched Lisette on the neck with the flat of his hand, and, obeying the signal, she slung half-round and lashed out. There was a curse and a heavy fall as the stricken horse lurched downward with its leg broken, and we behind had to rein up sharply, to avoid riding on those in front. In the momentary confusion caused by this, a little space was left clear for Coqueville. It was but a flash, a second of time that he had. But he took it, and, as the kicked horse fell, he lifted Lisette’s head, dashed through the opening into the wood, and vanished.
In a moment there was a wild hubbub of kicking, plunging horses around us. The man next to me vainly fired his pistol after the fugitive, and two or three of the troopers rode after him in headlong pursuit. The whole line halted, and Richelieu galloped up, white with rage. He saw at a glance what had happened, and a short inquiry told him who had escaped.
“Here, Poltrot!” he exclaimed to a sergeant, “take half a dozen men and bring him back, dead or alive, and a hundred crowns are yours.”
“You might make it five hundred with safety. You will never have to pay. The Orléanais is not long enough to give you time to catch Lisette.”