Chapter XXI “The Road to Paris.”
Dick descended first, then came Catherine, Gretel next, Antoine last. While the four were speeding, in the darkness, from the open grounds of the palace, Antoine bethought him that he had not yet dismissed the horse on which he had come from Spangenberg. He therefore went and got the animal, in sight of the guards at one of the doors, who supposed he had left the palace by another exit. He then rode boldly out of the town, crossing the bridge to take the Melsungen road. As he not only knew the password for all guards and patrols, but was also known to have been riding on the Landgrave’s business, he was not detained a moment on the bridge. He rode on to a place that Dick had named as a rendezvous.
Meanwhile, Dick and the two women joined Romberg at the riverside, silently got aboard the boat, and rowed up the Fulda to a point some distance out of the city. Here they disembarked and found the two horses where the gentlemen had left them. In a few minutes they, too, were pressing forward on the Melsungen road, Catherine mounted behind Dick, Gretel behind Romberg.
“What road is this?” asked Catherine, whose sense of locality and direction had been confused by the darkness and the haste.
“It leads first to Melsungen,” said Dick, “but for us it is merely the first stage of the road to Paris; we shall not stop, except to eat and sleep and change horses, till we arrive there.”
Dick felt certain he could now return to Paris without incurring danger there. He would make himself known at once to the American commissioners, and so establish connections that would not allow of his being imprisoned again without inquiry. As a citizen of a country now France’s ally in war, he would have little, if anything, to fear from Necker, as long as he should act prudently. As for the secret Brotherhood, perhaps it no longer existed. Now that he had not four armed men at his elbows, he felt he could take care of himself. But he trusted most to the likelihood of his being unrecognized after such a lapse of time.
Meanwhile, he was yet several days’ journey from Paris, and far from being out of the dominion of his friend, Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel.
When the four riders, on the two horses, neared the place where Antoine was to have waited, they heard a horse coming towards them from ahead, and soon the dark figure that loomed up on its back proved to be his.
“Monsieur,” he said to Dick, “there is a body of horsemen approaching from the direction of Melsungen. They must be the troops that the Landgrave sent in search of you after your escape yesterday.” Antoine had been informed of recent occurrences by the messenger whom he had accompanied to Spangenberg.
“Shall we turn back and take the by-road we passed awhile ago?” asked Dick, of Romberg, who was better acquainted with the country.
“It is the only thing to do,” said Romberg, suiting action to the word by turning his horse.
When the party had moved a few rods back towards Cassel, there came from the direction of the city a sullen boom, breaking with startling effect the silence of the night.
“The alarm-gun,” said Romberg, checking his horse.
“That is fired for deserters, is it not?” said Dick, following his example.
“But deserters might have robbed gentlemen, and taken their clothes and horses, with which to escape,” said Romberg. “That gun warns the country to look out for fugitives of any kind.”
“The Landgrave must have awakened too soon and given the alarm,” said Dick. “I let him off with too small a dose.”
At that instant there was heard a distant hollow sound like thunder, but less uneven.
“Horsemen galloping over the bridge at Cassel,” said Romberg.
“A pursuing party, without any doubt,” said Dick. “Hang my thoughtlessness! The guards saw which way Antoine came. Well, we must reach the by-road before they do.”
“That is impossible,” said Romberg. “We should meet them before we arrived there.”
“But if we wait here they will be upon us in a few minutes. And, if we resume our way towards Melsungen, we shall meet the party that Antoine discovered. Hark, I can hear that party now!”
Romberg looked around, scanning the dark country on both sides of the road. Here the land was quite clear of trees, and every object was now and then made visible by the appearance of the moon through cloud-rifts.
“There is a ruined abbey, at the head of that short lane,” said Romberg. “Perhaps if we should hide there till these two parties meet,—”
“As neither party would have come upon us on the way,” said Dick, “they might suppose we had taken some other road, after all. Come, then. ’Tis our only chance.”
The three horses were instantly turned into the lane. The abbey was now used as a barn. The wide door was barred on the outside with a piece of wood, merely to keep it from being opened by the wind. The men dismounted and led the horses into the dark interior, which smelled of hay and grain. They closed the door, but there was no way of bolting it on the inside. The women now dismounted, and the party stood in silence, trusting that their horses would not in any way betray their presence.
As fate would have it, the two forces of horsemen—the one commanded by the officer who had let Dick escape, the other by the Baron von Sungen—met near the mouth of the lane leading to the barn. Torches were lighted, and the two leaders conferred for some time. Then Von Sungen, who was not only the superior in rank but was also the more recently from Cassel and had the Landgrave’s latest orders, got off his horse, seized a torch from one of the bearers, and started up the lane, followed afoot by six of his men.
The gentlemen in the barn saw this movement through chinks of the door.
“It is Von Sungen,” said Romberg. “He must have a strong personal interest in your capture, that he should come to search with his own eyes.”
He and Dick drew their swords. Antoine held ready a pistol, which he had carried in his saddle-bag on his Spangenberg journey.
Von Sungen’s concern seemed indeed very great, for so rapidly he strode that he reached the barn a dozen feet ahead of his men. He opened the door, and thrust in his head, preceding it with his torch.
Before any one could make a movement, the attention of all was drawn by Catherine, who said to Dick and Romberg:
“Flee for your lives, gentlemen! Don’t heed me. I shall be dead before he can lay a hand upon me.”
And she held to her lips the phial that Dick had left on her table in the palace.
Dick ran to grasp her hand, and Von Sungen cried out to her, in the utmost alarm, “For God’s sake, not that, mademoiselle!” He, too, would have rushed in to prevent her, but his breast was menaced by the sword of Romberg.
Meanwhile the dismounted men who had accompanied Von Sungen from the road, had halted at a respectful distance from him, and they now stood awaiting orders, which he was too much occupied with Catherine’s movements to give. The men could not see the inside of the barn, or hear what was said there.
“Oho!” said Romberg to Von Sungen. “Your interest in mademoiselle’s welfare betrays you. You have orders to take her back alive.”
“You have the gift of second sight, my dear Romberg,” said Von Sungen, watching Catherine, who still held the phial to her lips, although Dick’s hand upon her wrist could have dashed it from her at any moment.
“Then,” said she to Von Sungen, “the instant your men approach, I will take this poison, I swear!”
“Therefore, Baron,” put in Dick, “to prevent accident, you would better order your men away, while we discuss matters.”
“If your frame of mind is for discussion, I am quite willing to do that,” said Von Sungen, who himself feared that some sudden movement of his men might precipitate Catherine’s threatened action. He turned and spoke a few words to the six, who thereupon faced about and marched back to the road, where the two mounted forces waited. Only Von Sungen as yet knew who were in the barn. He had given his followers the impression that his talk was with peasants who might put him on the track of the fugitives.
“And now, mademoiselle and messieurs,” said Von Sungen, “will you listen to reason? You cannot fail to see how impossible is your escape from this place, with all those horse-guards watching from the road. Even if you could kill me—”
“We have no desire to do that,” said Dick. “God knows there are few enough kind hearts and cheerful faces in the world, as it is. But we are as determined to escape, or all to die together, as you probably are to capture us.”
Von Sungen here stepped into the barn, but the look on Catherine’s face promptly checked him from going any nearer to her.
“My orders are,” he said, “to bring back Monsieur Wetheral and Mademoiselle de St. Valier, both alive, if possible; or, if need be, the gentleman dead, but the lady alive in any event. Nothing was said of Captain von Romberg.”
“Nevertheless,” put in that gentleman, “Captain von Romberg joins his fate with theirs, until all are safe or dead.”
“You are sure to fail of carrying out your orders, Baron,” said Catherine. “I will never go back to Cassel alive.”
“Not even if I take on myself the risk of letting Monsieur Wetheral go free? In that case you will save his life, as well as that of Captain von Romberg, who seems determined to die with his friend. Moreover, you will be saving your own life as well,” said Von Sungen.
“A man of honor like the Baron von Sungen,” said Dick, with the gentlest shade of scorn and reproach, “must have a very strong motive for proposing that two other men of honor should accept their lives on the terms given.”
“It is true,” replied Von Sungen, “I have a large stake in this night’s business,—as great a one as yours, monsieur.”
“How can that be possible?” said Dick.
“I will prove it to you,” said Von Sungen. “I infer that you love this lady, and that your greatest wish is to preserve her from the purposes of the Landgrave. Well, I love a lady, and my dearest desire is to save her from a marriage that would be for her a degradation as great as any woman could feel in becoming the Landgrave’s favorite. Don’t tell me, monsieur, that marriage would lessen the horror of a virtuous woman’s union with old Rothenstein. Well, the Baroness’s hand is at the disposal of the Landgrave. He has hesitated whether to favor Rothenstein or yield to my entreaties. To-night, when his highness sent me to seek you, he said, ‘Bring Mademoiselle de St. Valier back alive, and you shall marry the Baroness von Lüderwaldt when you please. Come back without mademoiselle alive, and Rothenstein shall marry your Baroness to-morrow.’”
“My poor Von Sungen!” said Dick, his ready imagination putting himself for the moment in the place of the other, with whom his own case enabled him perfectly to sympathize.
“Well, monsieur,” said Von Sungen, “it seems that both of us must lose our sweethearts and our lives, for if mademoiselle will not save your life, and enable me to save my sweetheart, I will kill myself. I would no more live to see her wedded to that vile old wretch, Rothenstein, than you would live to see your beloved possessed by the Landgrave. But, mademoiselle, will you not save your lover’s life in spite of himself?”
“I will not go back to the Landgrave,” she said, with calm resolution. Her agreement for the saving of her brother had been made on the belief that her lover was dead, and before she had experienced the horrible emotions that came with a later conception of what that agreement would require of her.
The Baron sighed in despair. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation:
“Ach! Since for each of us it is all or death, let at least one of us have all! You must admit, our stakes are equal or nearly so. I repeat, I should suffer as much from the Baroness’s marriage to Rothenstein as you would from mademoiselle’s falling into the hands of the Landgrave. So let us appeal to chance. If you win the throw, you shall both go free, you and the lady; I will go back without her, and take the consequences. But if I win, the lady shall go back with me.”
“You consider,” said Dick, with a faint smile, “that even chances are preferable to the certainty of mademoiselle’s taking the poison.”
“Good God, monsieur, do you not consider likewise? Come. If you lose, you can at least die, as I shall do if I lose. It is the honor and happiness of your sweetheart against the self-respect and happiness of mine, the life and happiness of yourself against the life and happiness of myself. Why, if you lose, mademoiselle, too, can die, if she wishes, after I have taken her back to the Landgrave. So you are no worse off for abandoning your position of certain destruction for us all, and for allowing chance to save one of us for happiness.”
“The issue is too important to leave to chance,” said Dick, quietly. “Let us determine it by skill.”
“Very well; but what game of skill have we here the means of playing?”
“There is a game of skill that gentlemen play with swords,” said Dick.
“Excellent!” cried Von Sungen, understanding. “And the game in our case has this advantage, it can be so played that the loser need not survive his loss. Let it be a duel to the death, monsieur, so that the unfortunate one shall not be under the necessity of killing himself.”
“Agreed,” said Dick.
“But I will not consent,” cried Catherine. “Even if you fight and lose, I will not go back to the Landgrave; I will take the poison.”
“In this cause I cannot possibly lose,” said Dick, pressing her hand. “Give your consent, dearest.”
She looked at his calm eyes, his unmoved countenance, his steady hands, and said, after a moment:
“Very well.”
“Then, Baron,” said Dick, “you may take measures, regarding the troops out there, to enable us to depart unhindered when you are dead.”
“If I send them away—” Von Sungen began, but paused.
“We give you our word of honor, we will not escape from you otherwise than by my killing you in this fight,” said Dick.
“Captain von Romberg will not interfere?” said the Baron.
“Not unless to prevent the intrusion of some possible third party,” answered Romberg.
“I will return in a minute,” then said Von Sungen. “You may wish to have a light while I am gone,” and he handed his torch to Antoine.
He walked down the lane to the waiting horsemen, and ordered the second in command to lead the two forces back to a certain junction of roads. “I am making some inquiries,” he added, “that may help us in this search. Meanwhile, keep close watch on the by-road till I join you.”
The troops, puzzled but not permitted to question, rode off in the direction of Cassel. Von Sungen, who had taken from one of them a second torch, now strode back to the barn with it. He found Dick ready for the contest, for which the barn floor presented a sufficient arena. The baron handed the second torch to Romberg, and silently made his preparations. The four who were to be spectators moved to where Antoine had already led the horses, at one end of the barn floor. The torches threw an uneven red light on the scene, leaving the surroundings, here obscure, and there entirely lost in shadow.
Dick and Von Sungen faced each other, without the least hatred, indeed with great esteem, but each determined to kill the other. The swords clashed. The advantage in duelling experience lay strongly with Von Sungen. Dick had fought only one duel, but he had recently resumed practice with the foils under a French fencing-master at Cassel. Moreover, Von Sungen was still fully under the excitement with which he had started on the pursuit, while with Dick this incident had been immediately preceded by so many scenes of danger that he could now face anything with calmness. So he fought cautiously, at first only guarding against the other’s impetuous attack.
Finally the Baron’s exertions began to tell upon him, and a wild thrust betrayed either that his eye was no longer true, or that his brain had lost perfect control of his arm. Dick felt it was now but a matter of time that the Baron should lay himself open to a decisive lunge.
Suddenly the barn door was flung open from the outside, and two men stepped unceremoniously in, armed with swords and pistols, and the second one bearing a torch.
“Aha!” cried the first, flashing up his sword. “I thought you might be in danger!” And he ran to the aid of Von Sungen.
“Curse you for meddling against orders!” cried the Baron, enraged at this assistance. “Don’t interfere, I command you!”
And the fight went on, between Von Sungen and Wetheral. The Baron’s officer, who had come back with one of the horse-guards,—on what pretext was never known,—stepped aside, amazed. But in a few moments this officer whispered something to the horse-guard with him, and the latter started for the door. By this time Romberg and Antoine had both run past the fighters and neared the door. Antoine, unwilling to make a noise by firing a shot, thrust his torch into the departing soldier’s face, and then felled the suddenly blinded man to the floor with a blow of his pistol. The interfering officer, with a fierce oath, instantly ran his sword through Antoine’s body, drawing it immediately out to defend himself against Romberg, who had lost time in finding a place for his torch. The old servant fell dead across the soldier he had knocked senseless, and the torches of the two blazed up from the ground. Romberg and the officer now had a rapid exchange of thrusts, the two being evenly matched. But a sharp cry, from a few feet away, drew for an instant the attention of the officer, and Romberg’s sword, piercing his lung, stretched him on the floor near the other two prostrate bodies.
The cry that the officer had heard was the death cry of Von Sungen, who now lay silent and motionless at Dick’s feet.
“Poor Baroness von Lüderwaldt!” said Dick, gently, wiping his sword with a wisp of hay.
Catherine seized Dick’s hand, and pressed it in silence, then ran over towards Antoine.
“He is quite dead,” said Romberg, rising from a brief examination of the old servant’s body.
Catherine gazed at the prostrate figure a moment, with sorrowful but tearless face, and then allowed Dick to lead her to a horse.
When Dick and Romberg, having assisted Catherine to mount, went to help Gretel, the girl refused, saying she had thought to be of assistance to mademoiselle, but had found herself only an encumbrance. Therefore, in order that the flight should be no more delayed on her account, she would not accompany the fugitives further, but would walk to her home near Homberg, where she would be safe from the inquiries of the Landgrave and his officers. As the girl’s resolution was not to be overcome, and as time was precious, the three went forth without her, there being now a horse for each. Catherine rode on a man’s saddle, of which the gentlemen hastily readjusted the stirrups so that she might sit in feminine fashion. In leaving the barn, the men put out the torches, and Dick possessed himself of old Antoine’s loaded pistol, as well as of his cloak, in place of which he left the scarlet one.
The fugitives avoided, by a détour through fields, the bridge that crossed to Melsungen; and they continued southward along the right bank of the Fulda. Now and then they stopped to rest their horses. Dawn found them suffering from fatigue, but they rode on. At a farmhouse they stopped and fed their horses, also refreshing themselves with milk and eggs. At noon they arrived at the town of Fulda, having covered the sixty miles from Cassel, without change of horses and over bad roads, in eleven hours.
On entering Fulda they gave the officer of the guard false names and a prepared story. They learned that a close watch was being kept for an officer in a scarlet cloak; so Dick was thankful for having exchanged with poor Antoine. The search begun yesterday had, thus, evidently extended as far as to Fulda. With the discovery of Von Sungen’s fate, new parties would be sent in every direction. Dick was loath to lose time, but the fatigue of all three was so great that dinner and a few hours of sleep were taken at the inn at Fulda. Four o’clock in the afternoon saw the fugitives again on the road.
The shortest route to France was by way of Frankfort, for which city they now made, intending to travel by night, and to give a wide berth to whatever walled towns might lie in the way. Fortunately, their horses were of a stock characterized by great endurance.
They had been about two hours out of Fulda, when they saw a horseman galloping up behind them. As this cavalier himself looked back frequently, it appeared more likely that he feared pursuit than that he was to be feared as a pursuer. When he was quite near, Romberg cried out:
“By God’s thunder, it is the traitor, Mesmer! So they have let him escape, after all!”
“Escape?” said Dick, with a grim kind of smile. “Do you call his falling into our hands an escape?” And Dick turned to go and meet the newcomer. But Catherine caught his arm, so that he had to rein up to avoid dragging her from her horse.
“Let this be my affair,” said Romberg, and immediately rode towards Mesmer, drawing his sword as he did so.
Mesmer suddenly recognized the two gentlemen and divined Romberg’s purpose. Bringing his horse to an abrupt stop, he drew a pistol, with which he had in some way provided himself, and fired straight at Romberg as the latter came up. Romberg instantly tumbled from the horse to the road, and lay still, retaining his sword in the rigid grasp of death.
Dick gave a cry of grief and wrath, tore his arm from Catherine’s hold, and galloped towards Mesmer, drawing his own pistol and firing as he went. A shriek cleft the air, and the traitor rolled on the earth, close to the body that he himself had bereft of life a moment ago.
Dick quickly ascertained that both were dead, then remounted his horse, seized the bridle of Catherine’s, and spurred forward. Not a word passed for some time, both indulging in silence the emotions produced by this latest swift tragedy. Presently Dick said, “If we should report to the next town’s authorities that those two bodies are back there in the road, we should doubtless be detained, and all would be lost. So I shall merely tell the first honest-looking man we meet, where the bodies lie and whose they are. My poor Romberg!”
This plan Dick soon carried out, and, as in this case his judgment of a face was correct, the two bodies were subjected neither to robbery nor to final consignment to unknown graves.
At nightfall Dick and Catherine gave their horses rest and food at a village hostelry, and then resumed their journey, pretending they had little farther to go. But they rode all night, making what battle they could against fatigue, and what defence their cloaks enabled them to maintain against the cold.
They entered Frankfort a few minutes after the gates were opened for the day. As this was a free city, it seemed likely that they were out of danger, although it might turn out that the Landgrave’s arm could reach them here, through his resident, as the arm of Frederick of Prussia had reached Voltaire twenty-five years before. But it was absolutely necessary that they should have sleep, so Dick took the risk of riding at once to the inn called the Emperor, and ordering rooms and breakfast. As they dropped into chairs in the dining-parlor, more dead than alive, they heard an exclamation of surprise from a man they had vaguely perceived across the table. Both, looking up at the same moment, recognized Gerard de St. Valier.
This meeting revived the worn-out energies of Dick and Catherine, and explanations were quickly made. Gerard, having been released from Spangenberg some hours before the other two had left Cassel, and having taken at Melsungen a shorter route than that by way of Fulda, had arrived in Frankfort late the previous night. And, a few minutes after his arrival, a great event had occurred. He had met at this inn a lawyer’s clerk, on the way from Paris to Cassel, with papers awarding at last to the St. Valiers the bequest that had been disputed in the courts. This news made the future look rosy. It assured the St. Valiers of a moderate competency, and would make it possible for Dick to marry Catherine without fear of her being tied to destitution through any failure of his own to find fortune.
It was agreed to remain at the Emperor until noon, that some hours of sleep might be had. Then the three were to start Parisward on their horses, this mode of travel—no longer a common one for ladies—being retained because it was by far the most rapid.
When Dick and Catherine reappeared from their rooms, at the time set for taking horse again, they met Gerard, whose face wore a look of disquietude.
“I have paid the bills, and the horses are ready,” he said to Dick, in a low tone. “Let us lose no time in getting out of the city and territory of Frankfort.”
“What is the matter?” asked Dick.
“In the street, awhile ago, I saw Wedeker, who always bears the Landgrave’s important despatches, ride up, on a foaming horse, to a house that he almost broke his way into, he was in so great a hurry. I asked a passer-by what house it was. It was that of the Landgrave’s Frankfort resident. Wedeker is doubtless straight from Cassel, with orders to have you held in Frankfort; and in a very short time, if the resident can have his way with the authorities, the city guard will be on the hunt for us.”
“Let us go, then. This running away from authorities seems to have become a fixed habit of mine,” said Dick, giving his hand to Catherine.
In a few minutes the three fugitives rode westward through the Mainz gate, Dick giving a sigh of relief as they emerged to the open suburb bordering the river Main.
“Evidently no orders concerning us have yet reached the gates,” he said, looking back at the stolid guard they had just passed.
“We are not yet out of the territory appertaining to the city of Frankfort,” said Gerard.
“And if we get out of it,” said Dick, “we shall have to look out for this Wedeker, I suppose, until the last foot of German soil is behind us.”
“Probably,” replied Gerard, “but we have the start of Wedeker, and, as the local authorities will nowhere send their troops or police out of their own territory, he must travel alone much of the time. If he should come up to us alone, between one town and another—”
“Some one else would subsequently have the honor of carrying the Landgrave’s important despatches,” put in Dick. “We ought to have taken fresh horses, Gerard. Catherine’s and mine are almost run out. They have done incredible service already.”
A quarter of an hour later Catherine’s mount staggered, stumbled, and lay panting on its side. Its rider slid from the saddle in time to escape injury.
Gerard and Dick came to a quick stop. “My beast is fresh,” said Gerard. “You’d best ride behind me.”
Dick got off his own horse, and assisted Catherine upon Gerard’s. Then he remounted his own; but he had no sooner done so than the animal sank under him, the last bit of strength having passed from its trembling limbs.
“The deuce!” exclaimed Dick. “I imagine your beast is hardly fresh enough to carry three, Gerard?”
Gerard laughed, in spite of this setback, at the droll manner in which Dick asked this question.
Then Dick turned his eyes back towards Frankfort, took on a peculiar smile, and said, in the coolest and mildest of voices:
“It is a pity,—because I see a number of soldiers or police riding out of the gate we rode through a few minutes ago.”
Gerard looked around, and turned pale. “My God!” said he. “It is the city guard! And don’t you recognize Wedeker by his uniform, with the officer at their head?”
Dick heaved a gentle sigh, then looked at his empty pistol and his sword. “This is an occasion for horses, not for weapons,” he said, with his former quietness. “To think that, after all the flying, the fighting, and the killing, a man should be nabbed at last, merely for want of a fresh horse. Why do you wait, Gerard? You can easily escape with Catherine. You must save her.”
“And leave you? Never!”
“Well said, my brother,” whispered Catherine.
“I see yonder a kind of country inn, to judge from the horse-shed near it,” said Dick, indicating a low building a short distance ahead on their road.
He started towards it afoot, followed by the two who were mounted. When he reached the shed, he saw therein, to his amazement, two horses. A peasant was in the act of giving them grain.
“Whose animals are these, my friend?” queried Dick.
“They belong to a soldier, mein herr, who arrived last night with the black, and won the gray from another guest, at cards.”
“And where is this fortunate person to be found?”
“In the house, mein herr; in the first room at the head of the stairs.”
“I’ll go and try to make a bargain with him,” said Dick.
“No,” said Gerard, “let me go. I am now better able to make bargains than you are.” And he leaped off his horse and ran to the house. He desired that he, not Dick, should be at the expense of the purchase.
Dick stood waiting beside Catherine, looking now into her anxious eyes with a reassuring smile, now towards the distant troops that were steadily drawing nearer on the road.
Soon Gerard reappeared from the house, with a dejected face. “The fellow refuses to sell,” he said. “He sat playing a violin, and blamed me for interrupting his music. I think we should be justified in taking one of his horses, in spite of him.”
“You cannot do that, mein herr,” said the peasant, looking towards the inn, from which came the sounds of men gambling and drinking.
“What sort of a man is this horse-owner?” asked Dick, not as if with any hope, but as if duty required the last possible effort.
“A gaunt rascal,” said Gerard, “who began to answer me in French, and then veered into a kind of Scotch-English, with an Irish phrase or two.”
A strange, wondering look came over Dick’s face. “Let me try,” he said, in a barely audible voice, and made hastily for the house.
He flung open the door, rushed up the rickety stairs, and stopped before a chamber at their head. From within came the sound of a fiddle scraping out the tune of “Over the hills and far away.”
Dick burst into the room, crying out, “Tom MacAlister, dear old Tom, I am the man that wants to buy your horse!”
“’Tis no sic a vast warld, they that do a mickle travelling will discover,” said MacAlister, as he and the three fugitives cantered westward towards Mayence, having left the Frankfort territory, and, consequently, the Frankfort city guard, far behind them.
The two St. Valiers rode one of Tom’s horses, which were both stronger and fresher than the animal on which Gerard had come out of Frankfort. The latter beast now carried MacAlister, who had nothing to fear from being overtaken, and whose second horse was ridden by Wetheral. The piper’s son had not expressed any great surprise at seeing Dick, a fact explained by him in the words already quoted.
“I mak’ nae doot your ain presence in these parts was brought aboot in the most likely way,” he continued; “and, sure, there’s devil a bit extraordinary in my being here.”
He then gave account of his movements since the attack on Quebec. Exchanged, with Morgan and the other prisoners, he served under that gallant commander in the glorious campaign of Saratoga. His term of enlistment expiring on the very day of Burgoyne’s surrender, he voluntarily accompanied the troops that escorted the defeated British and Hessian army to Boston. In that town he met a Virginia Scotchman, whose people he had known in Scotland. This man, who had added the name of Jones to that of John Paul, held the rank of captain in the newly projected navy of the United States of America, and was on the very eve of sailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a vessel called the Ranger. Love of diversity impelled Tom to ship for the cruise across the Atlantic. Sailing November 1, 1777, the Ranger captured two prizes, sent them to the port of Malaga, and arrived on the second of December at Nantes, in the harbor of which Captain Jones caused the new flag of the United States to receive its first salute in European waters, as its white stars set in blue and its red and white stripes fluttered high above the Ranger’s deck. MacAlister accompanied Jones to Paris, where he grew weary of inaction while the captain was trying, with the aid of the American commissioners, to obtain a certain fine frigate for the new navy. So Tom, in whom a returning inclination for some more European service had begun to assert itself, started for Germany, with a thought of finding employment in the war that Frederick of Prussia had been conducting against Austria, since the first of the present year of 1778, over the Bavarian succession.
“But now that I’ve met you,” MacAlister said to Dick, “it’s devil an inch further I’ll gang eastward. Sure, ’tis nae self-sacrifice to turn aboot and trot back to Paris, for that war has been plodding along sin’ ’most a year agone, and never a battle yet, for whilk I should think the King of Prussia, auld as he is, would be ashamed,—as nae doot he is. Weel, weel, so ’tis the young lady of Quebec ye are, miss! Sure, Dickie, lad, do ye mind what I tauld ye once, aboot the wind of circumstance?”
“Ay, Tom, but if we had left all to the wind of circumstance, we should not be this moment riding free towards Paris.”
“No more ye should, lad. ’Tis one part circumstance, and three parts wark and fight, that lands a man safe and sound in the snug harbors of this warld.”
They tarried briefly at Mayence, keeping the while an eye on the gate by which Wedeker would enter if he should continue his efforts. But, if Wedeker entered at all, it was after the four travellers had departed from the city of priests and were on their way to Birkenfeld.
From Birkenfeld they went to Metz, where they disposed of their horses and hired a coach and four to convey them onward by easy stages. Once on French ground, they breathed with perfect freedom.
“And when ye do get to Paris, lad,” asked Tom, “what then? If ye have a mind to serve your country in the way of sea-fighting, we can do nae better than seek out Captain Jones.”
“I think,” was the answer, “after I see Paris,—for I never have seen it, though I have passed through it,—I would like to have a look at my own country again. But it is for others to say.”
“No,” said Catherine, gently. “It is for you to say. Is it not, Gerard?”
“When my affairs in France are settled,” replied Gerard, “I am sure the other side of the Atlantic will be good enough for me.”
Verdun, Châlons, Épernay, one after another, were left behind; then Meaux, and, at last, one cold but sunny afternoon late in December, the coach rolled through a faubourg, passed under an arch, and rumbled along the Rue St. Martin, whence it was to take its passengers to a hotel in the Rue St. Honore. But, at Dick’s desire, the coachman drove first to the Pont Neuf, and there stopped. Through the right-hand window the four passengers could see the Louvre and the Tuileries, as well as the buildings at the opposite side of the Seine; through the left-hand window they could see, above the mass of roofs and spires, the towers of Notre Dame, flashing back the horizontal sun-rays.
“It is like in the picture-book,” said Dick, softly,—for his fancy had long since transfigured the stiff engravings he had studied in his childhood. Then he turned and looked at the friendly faces within the coach,—Gerard’s, old Tom’s; last of all, the face beside him, whose dark eyes met his.
“Do you know, I was always sure,” he said, “that the road to Paris was to be my road to happiness.”
The End