He alighted in the exact middle of the porch roof and fell with his ankles against the foot-high raised parapet. Then he paused a moment ere deciding what he should do next.

The sound of voices and clanking sabres were coming nearer—also it would soon now be light. And he wondered that he heard no noise from the man watching within; wondered that he was not staring about for those who were coming; almost wondered that he was not standing at the door with it open, ready to go out and meet them.

One thing St. Georges recognised as necessary to be done at once, viz., to quit the roof of the porch. There was no safety for him there; the instant AndrÉ entered his room he would perceive he was flown, would rush to the window, and, looking out, would doubtless perceive him crouching and huddled up. He must quit that, and at once. But where? Then suddenly he bethought him of the stable that ran off at left angles from the house, close by the porch itself. That would be his best place of safety; moreover, he would have the horse to his hand; on it he might yet escape. And also from the open door of the stable he could reconnoitre, observe what happened, what must happen, in the next few moments. For now the voices of those who were approaching sounded very near. A little while, and his fate now trembling in the balance would be decided.

He lowered himself quickly over the side of the doorway roof—having but a distance of four or five feet to drop when hanging down—and observed that still the door was fast and that there was no sign of AndrÉ about—doubtless he was waiting for the men to come, ere opening it! Immediately afterward he touched the ground and turned his steps to the alley leading to the stable and swiftly passed up to it, keeping under the shelter of a low wall. So far he was safe!

The horse whinnied a little as he entered—already the creature had come to know him well, perhaps because of his kindly treatment—but he silenced it at once by placing his arm over its mouth and nostrils, then seized the bridle and saddle and prepared it ready for mounting, doing so very quietly, for now the men were close at hand! This he did very rapidly, yet determinately, for, the animal once saddled, his chance would be still better. He had made his plans: if, when he was discovered missing, any should advance down the alley to seek for him, or to search if the horse was gone, he had resolved to mount as they advanced and to charge through them. Then, when he had done all that was necessary, he removed his sword from his back, drew it from the sheath and affixed the latter to his side. He was ready now.

And not too soon! In the now gathering light, sombre and lead-coloured, with, above, some clouds from which a misty rain was falling slightly, he saw three men belonging to the Garde de la Poste arrive in front of the door. One, a sergeant, struck lightly with his finger on the door and bent his ear against it.

"Si, si!" he heard this man say, a second after, evidently in reply to AndrÉ from within, "quite ready. Send him forth." And still he kept his ear to the side post. A moment later he spoke again, also doubtless in answer to a question from within.

"Nay, have no fear," he said; "once outside he is ours," and he turned to the other two and gave them some orders which St. Georges could not overhear. He could see, however; and what he saw was, that under their superior's directions each of the others drew their heavy dragoon sabres—for to that branch of the army the Garde de la Poste belonged—and placed themselves one on either side of the porch.

Then all listened attentively.

A moment later, from the first and top floor, through the open window from which St. Georges had escaped, they heard the shouts of the man AndrÉ; and St. Georges heard them, too, and grasped his sword more firmly, and with them came from the other side of the house a cry from the woman.

"Carogne!" exclaimed the sergeant, "the galley boy is giving trouble—AndrÉ cannot induce him to descend. Yet, hark! he comes! listen to his tread on the stairs—he is rushing down. Be ready!" and as he spoke the two men raised their swords.

Again all heard the voice of AndrÉ shouting within, the woman screaming, too; the door was fumbled at, and in the still, dim, misty light St. Georges saw a form rush out, and a minute later fall shrieking heavily to the ground, cut down by both sabres of the dragoons.

"We have him! we have him!" the sergeant shouted. "Come forth, man; he is ours!"

And as he spoke St. Georges leaped into the saddle, knowing that the time had almost come.

Another moment, and he heard one of the dragoons, who had been bending over the fallen man, exclaim:

"Mon dieu! What have we done? This is no galÉrien, but AndrÉ himself!"

"What!" bawled the sergeant. "What! Mon dieu! it is." Then he said in a horror-stricken hoarse voice, "Is he dead?"

"Ma foi! I fear so. His head is in half," the man replied. And with a look of terror he addressed his comrade: "That was your stroke, not mine. I struck him on the shoulder. Thank God, his blood is on your head!"

"Fichte!" exclaimed the second, a man of harder mettle. "What matters? It is our duty. And the piÉge was his, not ours. He was a fool. But where—where is the galÉrien? We must have him!"

"Into the house," exclaimed the sergeant, "into the house! The woman screams no more—doubtless he has murdered her. In, I say, and seek for him; scour cellar and garret. In, in!" and together they rushed into the cabaret, finding, as they pushed the door further open, AndrÉ's wife lying fainting in the passage. She had followed her husband down the stairs and witnessed his end.

That husband's greed—his withholding from the others the fact that the escaped galley slave had a good horse—led to that galley slave's escape. For, all unknowing that, not twenty paces off, the horse was there ready saddled to bear him away, they never thought of the stable, but, instead, plunged into the inn and commenced at once roaming from room to room searching for him.

As they did so, his opportunity came. Swiftly he led the animal down the alley to the door—it had no other exit, or he would have escaped by it—equally swiftly he led it some distance down the street, praying to God all the time that its hoofs striking on the stones might not reach their ears, and sweating with fear and apprehension as he heard their shouts and calls to one another. Then, when he was fifty yards away from the house, he jumped into the saddle, patted his horse on the neck, and rode swiftly for the East Gate.

Whether he would get through before the whole east part of the city was alarmed—as he knew it soon must be—he could not tell yet. If the gates were not open, he was as much lost as before; he must be taken. But would they be so open? Would they? As he prayed they might, the cathedral clock rang out again, struck four.

"O God!" he murmured, "grant this may be the hour. Grant it! grant it!"

It seemed to him as though his prayer was heard. Nearing the East Gate, placed on the west side of a branch of the river Eure, he saw the bascule descending; he knew that four o'clock was the hour. Also he saw several peasants standing by, ready to pass over it into the country beyond, doubtless either to fetch in produce for the city or going to their work. He was safe now, he felt; if none came behind, there would be no hindrance to his exit.

"You ride early, monsieur," the keeper said, glancing up at him from his occupation of throwing down some grain to his fowls, which he had just released for the day. Then, taking out a pocketbook, "Your name, monsieur, and destination?" he asked.

"Destination, Paris. Name——" and he paused. He had not anticipated this. Yet he must give a name and at once; at any moment from the city might appear a crowd, or the dragoons shouting to the man to bar his egress. "Name, Dubois. And I ride in haste. You have heard the news?"

"News! no," exclaimed the man, while even the peasants going to their toil pricked up their ears. "What news?"

"Tourville's fleet is ruined—burned—by the English! Stop me not. I ride to carry it. By orders!"

"Mon Dieu!" the man exclaimed, "by the English. Tourville defeated by them? It is impossible!"

"It is true," while as he spoke—still moving across the now lowered drawbridge as he did so—one of the peasants, an old woman, wailed: "My boy was there—in the Ambitieux! Is that burnt?"

"I do not know, good woman," he replied, unwilling to tell the poor old creature the worst. "I must not tarry."

And in a moment he had put the horse to the gallop. He had left Bayeux behind. Out of the jaws of death he had escaped once more. "But," he asked himself, "for how long? How long?"

That danger which he had escaped so soon after setting foot in France was not again equalled on the road, and a week later he neared the old fortified town of Rambouillet. He had progressed by obscure ways to reach it, avoiding every large city or town to which he had approached, and skirting, either on the north or south, Caen, Evreux, and Bernay. He was drawing nearer to Troyes now, nearer to where his child was, if still alive, nearer to the satisfaction he meant to have by his denunciation of the treachery of AurÉlie de Roquemaure.

Yet, as he so progressed, he asked himself of what use would such denunciation be—of what importance in comparison with the regaining of Dorine? That was all in all to him; the supreme desire of his life now—to regain her, to escape out of France once more; to earn subsistence sufficient for them both in England. Beyond that, the satisfaction of taxing Mademoiselle de Roquemaure with her treachery—the treachery of, with her mother, appearing to sympathize with him when they first met at the manoir, of expressing that sympathy again in Paris during their brief encounter outside the Louvre, of her false and lying words to Boussac—would be little worth. Yet, small as that satisfaction would be, something within told him he must obtain it; must stand face to face with her and look into those clear gray eyes that had the appearance of being so honest and were so false; must ask her why, since she so coveted all that his and his child's life might deprive her of, she had stooped to the duplicity of pretending to sympathize with him; to the baseness of stealing his child from the man who had himself stolen it—he knew not why; to the foul meanness of accompanying her menial—herself masked to prevent detection—and urging him on to murder; herself, by complicity, a murderess! And as he so pondered, he reflected also with what eager, cruel pleasure—for he knew now, and almost shuddered at knowing, that the wrongs inflicted on him had turned him toward cruelty—he would tell her of how her vile brother had died before his eyes.

So, determinately, he rode on, nearing Rambouillet, yet feeling as though sometimes he could go no further, must drop from his horse into the road. In the week since he escaped from Bayeux he had been feeling that day by day he was becoming ill, that all he had gone through—the immersion in the sea, the intensity of his excitement at Bayeux, his long rides and exposure to the weather—was like ere long to overwhelm him. Sometimes for hours he rode almost unconscious of what was passing around him; he burned with a consuming fever, his limbs and head ached and his thirst was terrible.

Yet, urged on and on by the object he had in view, he still went forward until, at last, he halted outside the town he had now come to, beneath the walls of the old castle of Rambouillet.