The Abbé made a grimace, put on his hat, flung his cloak around his shoulders, and followed the Prince down stairs. He remarked with some surprise that the carriage awaiting them was not the Prince's.
"I have hired a carriage for the occasion," remarked Pomerantseff quietly, noticing Gerard's glance of surprise. "I am unwilling that my servants should suspect anything of this."
They entered the carriage, and the coachman, evidently instructed beforehand where to go, drove off without delay. The Prince immediately pulled down the blinds, and taking a silk pocket handkerchief from his pocket, began quietly to fold it lengthwise.
"I must blindfold you, mon cher," he remarked simply, as if announcing the most ordinary fact.
"Diable!" cried the Abbé, now becoming a little nervous. "This is very unpleasant! I believe you are the devil yourself."
"Remember your promise," said Pomerantseff, as he carefully covered his friend's eyes with the pocket handkerchief, and effectually precluded the possibility of his seeing anything until he should remove the bandage. After this nothing was said. The Abbé heard the Prince pull up the blind, open the window, and tell the coachman to drive faster. He endeavored to discover when they turned to the right, and when to the left, but in a few minutes got bewildered and gave it up in despair. At one time he felt certain they were crossing the river.
"I wish I had not come," he murmured to himself. "Of course the whole thing is folly, but it is a great trial to the nerves, and I shall probably be upset for many days."
On they drove; the time seemed interminable to the Abbé.
"Are we near our destination yet?" he inquired at last.
"Not very far off," replied the other, in what seemed to Gérard a most sepulchral tone of voice. At length, after a drive of perhaps half an hour, but which seemed to the Abbé double that time, Pomerantseff murmured in a low tone, and with a profound sigh which sounded almost like a sob, "Here we are," and at that moment the Abbé felt the carriage was turning, and heard the horses' hoofs clatter on what he imagined to be the stones of a courtyard. The carriage stopped. Pomerantseff opened the door himself, and assisted the blindfolded priest to alight.