I thought it was all over with me; so, holding in my breath, and firmly clenching the top of my apron, I looked straight a-head, and made up my mind for a pitch over the wall at the bottom, and down through the wood, like the commandant and Petit-jean.
Just as we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned a sharp corner, that I had not before perceived, and charged, full gallop, right into an old shandrydan, that had pulled up, and, with a single horse, was beginning to climb the ascent. Our impetus seemed to carry us over the poor animal that was straining against its load, for he fell under our two beasts, and the shafts of the cabriolet catching the shandrydan under the driver's seat, turned it completely topsy-turvy into the midst of the road.
Such a shriek, or rather such a chorus of confused cries, came forth from the dark sides of that small and closely-shut vehicle!
"Au secours!" "Jesus-Maria!" "Vite, vite!" "Relevez-nous!" "Pour l'amour de Dieu!"
They were women's voices:—
"Ah ça, j'étouffe!" said a deep, gruff voice, in the midst of the hubbub.
As neither the postilion nor myself were hurt, we were quickly on our legs: he trying to get the horses disentangled—for they were kicking each other to pieces—and I to aid a thin, meek-looking peasant lad, who had been driving the shandrydan, to right the crazy vehicle.
'Twas a square, black-looking thing, covered at top, with no opening whatever but a small window in the door behind. It might have been built some time in the reign of Louis le Bien-aimé, and its cracked leather sides and harness seemed as if they had been strangers to oil ever since. If people were not very corpulent, four might have squeezed into it—not that they would have been comfortable, but they could have got in, and would have sat on the opposite seats, without much room to spare.
Some honest old Frenchman, thought I to myself, with his wife and daughter, and perhaps their maid. Poor man! he is coming from the Baths, cured of some painful malady, and now has had the misfortune to run the risk of his life—if, indeed, his bones be not broken—and all through that étourdi of a postilion. "If I do not report him to the maître de poste!" said I to myself.
"For the love of God, messieurs," said a faint voice, "get us out!"