"Thanks, monsieur; I can help you no more!" cried François. As he spoke, he hurled the unhappy Despard on top of the commissioner. They fell in a heap. The thief, catching up his rapier, was off and away through the drawing-room, seeing, as he went, the woman lying on the floor, her forehead streaming blood. He picked up his cloak and knapsack, and, followed by Toto, ran for his life down a long corridor to the left. At the end, he threw open a window, and dropped, with the dog under his arm, upon the roof of a portico over a side door. No one was near. He called the dog, and fled through the gardens and into the woods of the chase.
XVII
Of how François, escaping, lives in the wood; of how he sees the daughter of the marquis dying, and knows not then, or ever after, what it was that hurt him; of how he becomes homesick for Paris.
The forest was of great extent, and intersected by wood roads. Along one of these François ran for an hour or more, until he was tired, and had put, as he believed, some miles between himself and the citizen with the wart. The way became more narrow, the forest more dense. At last there was only a broad path. Now and then he saw the north star, and knew that he was traveling southward. He came out at dawn on an open space, rocky and barren, a great rabbit-warren, as he knew by the sudden stampede of numberless rabbits. He turned aside into the woods, and a few hundred yards away found a bit of marsh, and beyond it a brook, with leaf-covered space beneath tall plane-trees, now bare of foliage. He drank deep of the welcome water, and sat down with Toto to rest and think.
"Mon ami," he said, "we like adventures; but this was a little too much." Then he laughed at the thought of Pierre's terror; but the man with the wart was not so funny, and the poor lady who was St. Cecilia, and that cold-blooded devil of a marquis—"What a man!"
Here were rabbits for food, and only a forest bed, but, on the whole, better than the Conciergerie or the Châtelet. He slept long, and was cold, fearing to make a fire. About eleven next morning he left Toto, and went with care to the edge of the wood. He heard noises, and saw boys setting traps; for now my lord's rabbits were anybody's rabbits. The traps pleased him. He slipped away. At evening, being dreadfully hungry, he went to the warren, took two rabbits out of the traps, and went back. The man's patience was amazing: not until late at night did he make a fire to cook his meat; but Toto, less exacting, was fed at once with the raw flesh.
A week went by, with no more of incident than I have mentioned. He explored the woods day after day, and a half-mile away found a farm, whence at night he took toll of milk, having stolen a pail to aid him. It was all sadly monotonous, but what else could he do? Once, after a fortnight, he was bold enough to wander in daylight within the woods near the château. It was apparently deserted; at least, he saw no signs of habitation; nor, later at night, when he went back, were there lights, except in one room on the ground floor.
Francis approached with caution, and, looking through a window, saw an old man seated by the fire. Making sure that he was alone, the wanderer tapped on the pane. The man at the hearthside looked up, and François saw, as he had suspected, that he was the majordomo. Again François tapped, and observing the inmate move toward the door, he hurried thither. As they met, François hastened to say that he was the man who aided the marquis, having himself had the luck to escape. Once reassured, the old majordomo urged François to enter. But this he would not do. He had had enough of house-traps. In the forest they would be secure. To this the servant agreed, and followed him at once. When at last in the woodland shelter, François asked: "What of the marquis?" He had been taken by Grégoire toward Paris, but was said to have made his escape. "A hard man to hold is my master; and as to the village, it has had to pay right dearly, too." Pierre had been arrested, but was soon set free. And the little gentleman? He had been taken to a cousin's house in eastern Normandy. François hesitated over his final question; he himself could not have told why.
"THE WANDERER TAPPED ON THE PANE."