Late on the previous night, when the town had gone to bed and the streets were silent, nobody being abroad but the night watch and a few stragglers whose business and state of life made them avoid public notice and daylight, M. Gombard might have been seen stealing out by the back door to his own stable, and thence to the corner of a neighboring street, where he fastened his horse to a lamp-post, and stole back to the mairie with the quick, furtive air of a thief. He stepped softly down the stone passage that led to the lock-up room, laid his dark-lantern on the floor outside, and then turned the key slowly and with as little noise as possible. The dead silence that reigned in the place made the slight grating of the key sound like a shriek. When the mayor entered the room, the prisoner was walking up and down, trying to keep his blood in circulation; for the cold was intense, and he was famished with hunger. “I have come to release you,” M. Gombard said. “There is no time to lose. I have left a horse ready saddled at the corner of the street that leads straight to the ruined tower; you will mount him and ride for your life.”
The prisoner could hardly believe his ears.
“What does this mean?” he said. “You are a perfect stranger to me, and whoever you are, you must run a great risk in rendering me this service. May I ask why you take this interest in me?”
“I am glad to pay back a service that one whom … that was rendered to me not long since when passing through Cabicol. I will not say more; but you will learn all from the person in question most likely some day. Meantime, have no hesitation in accepting this service at my hands. It is a debt of gratitude that I am happy to be able to pay. Come, every minute is precious.”
The prisoner was not inclined to shut the door on his deliverer; whatever his motive might be, mysterious or romantic, it was a merciful chance for him. The two men left the house, stepping softly, stealthily like a couple of thieves. When they reached the entrance of a street, M. Gombard stopped, and pointed silently to where the gaslight fell upon the horse, giving him the appearance of a phantom beast amidst the surrounding gloom. The traveller held out his hand, and grasped the mayor’s in a long, strong pressure. M. Gombard returned it, and noticed now that his companion was bareheaded.
“You forgot your hat!” he said in a low voice.
“I lost it in the fray this morning.”
“Then the town of Loisel owes you another. Take this; it will serve you on the road as well as a new one.”
M. Gombard pulled off his hat and handed it to the fugitive, turned brusquely from him, and hurried home.
No one remembered the stranger who had provoked the popular fury, until two days after his arrest, when the agitation of the electioneering crisis had subsided, and the authorities had leisure to attend to ordinary business. Then it was discovered that the bird had flown, no one knew when, no one knew how. There was great consternation amongst the subordinate officials at the mairie whose duty it was to have looked after him; but each declared he was not responsible, that the prisoner had not been given into his charge, that the prisoner was only put there temporarily, and ought to have been conveyed at once to the jail, etc. This did not prevent them shaking in their shoes in mortal dread of being turned out of their places. The reporter was one of the first to hear of the escape. He flew at once with the intelligence to M. Gombard. M. Gombard looked him straight in the face and burst out into an uncontrollable fit of laughter; he shook, he held his sides, he laughed till he cried again. The reporter did not at first know what to make of it; but at last the contagion of M. le Maire’s mirth was irresistible. He began to laugh also, and then M. Gombard roared, and the two kept it up until they nearly died of it. At last M. Gombard, who was the first to recover himself, took out his red cotton handkerchief and wiped his eyes, and blew his nose, and, after sundry gasps and subsiding chuckles, said: “It is the cleverest joke I ever saw performed in my life, and you are the cleverest rogue I ever met with! It was bad enough to play it off unknown to me, to keep the fun of the thing to yourself; but then to walk in here with such cool impudence, and never move a muscle of your face while you announced it as the