Stunned and giddy, he got upon his feet again, and staggered blindly after the whirling carriage, uttering threats and defiances as huge as ever were thundered from the lips of the renowned knight of La Mancha. All would not do, however; the cortège held on its way with whirlwind speed. Vainly Gabriel strained every sinew to overtake the coach. The fell enchanters rapt his peerless mistress from his eyes, and every moment the distance between him and them became wider and more hopeless. At last, breathless, exhausted, enraged, he was forced to give over the pursuit, after having maintained it for nearly three miles over the pavements of the long straight road.
It was on the highway to Paris; thither he assumed they were bound, and there he resolved that night should behold him also. Sometimes running, sometimes walking with hurried strides, he steadily and rapidly pursued his way; his imagination every moment filled with images of the strange golden dragons and cupids, and the pale, beautiful face of Lucille shrieking from among them for help.
"What then had befallen Lucille?" The reader shall hear.
The first symptom which assured her that Blassemare was at work in the realization of this plot, was that her Norman woman, having stayed away longer than usual at her suppertime, returned with a very flushed face and dancing eyes, and altogether in a very hilarious and impertinent mood. For a long time, however, it appeared that the woman was only "pleasantly intoxicated," a state in which she would probably prove a more effectual check upon her plans of escape than in her ordinary condition. Spite of the seriousness of the issue, there was something inconceivably absurd in this distress. The woman was noisy, familiar, and sometimes indulged in a vein of menacing jocularity, the principal material of which was supplied from scraps of old Norman ditties. There was one in particular which had a specially grisly sound in the ears of the friendless and frightened young wife. It was about a belle demoiselle—
"Who lived all alone in a castle of brick,
And all in the night-time this lady fell sick;
She had eat of a berry that grew by the well,
And black grow her features—her members they swell;
This lady is poisoned and so she must lie,
All stark in her bower with nobody nigh."
In the midst of this sinister merriment the woman suddenly became drowsy, and after a few ineffectual efforts to shake off the torpor that was overpowering her, sank into a profound sleep. This occurred in the anteroom, and, leaving the snoring amazon to the sole occupation of the apartment, Lucille hastened to the bedchamber, from which she commanded a view of the little pavilion, in the window of which she was to expect the signal of escape.
It was quite dark; and with a heart palpitating so violently that she felt at times almost suffocating, she watched the hardly discernible outline of the building from which the signal was to be displayed.
The wicked Norman was snoring under the influence of her narcotics; but to the accompaniment of her abominable drone what a hell of suspense did poor Lucille endure! At length, and not until considerably past ten o'clock, a light gleamed faintly and for an instant in the appointed spot, and then disappeared. It returned, however, and now shone steadily. The decisive moment which was to commence the adventure had arrived. She murmured an imploring prayer, and turned the bolt of the window which opened on the balcony. Horror of horrors! it was fast locked; a strong wire grating covered the outside, so that even had she ventured upon so much noise as would have been necessary in order to break the glass, she would in that have encountered a further obstacle, to her strength absolutely insurmountable.
She made up her mind to escape by the outer door of her suite of rooms, and to risk all on being able undetected to make her exit in that way from the house. But that door was also locked. She wrung her hands in an agony of distraction; but she did not abandon the enterprise. Encouraged by the lusty snoring of the woman, she approached the fauteuil, where she lay rather than sat. She slid her hand into the sleeper's pocket, scarcely daring to breathe while she did so. The keys were not in it; and the woman turned with something like a start in the chair. Lucille recoiled on tiptoe, holding her breath, until she seemed again soundly asleep. She might have concealed them in her bosom; and with an effort of resolution Madame Le Prun stepped noiselessly beside her and tried there. She was successful, but in drawing out the key her hand brushed slightly on the slumbering woman's face, and to her unutterable terror she started bolt upright in the chair, and stared with a wild and glassy gaze in her face. Lucille's heart died within her; she froze with terror; but the action was purely physical, the woman's senses were still slumbering; there was no trace of meaning in her face; and in a few moments she fell back again in the same profound sleep.