The Cornet of Horse Part 32

"It is about ten miles this side of Poitiers that your mother lives, is it not, Margot?"

"Yes, Monsieur Rupert. How surprised she will be at my arrival with my cousins."

"Oh, we are both your cousins, are we, Margot?"

"Mademoiselle Adele is to pa.s.s as my cousin, monsieur, and I suppose you must be either another cousin, or else her brother."

"Margot," Adele said, "you chatter too much."

"Do I, mademoiselle? It is better than riding through the darkness without speaking. I was very glad when the cloths were off the horses' feet, for we seemed like a party of ghosts."

"How long shall we be getting there?" Adele asked, presently.

"Six days, if we do it all with the same horses," Rupert said; "and I am afraid to hire horses and leave them on the way, as it would look as if we were pressed for time. No, for today we are safe--but for today only. Messengers will be sent in all directions with orders for our arrest. They will take fresh relays of horses; and really our only hope is in disguise. I propose that we go the first stage without halting as far as our horses will carry us. I think we can get to Orleans. There we will put them up, and take rooms.

Then Margot must slip out in her own dress and buy two peasant girls' attire, and I will pick up at some dealer in old clothes a suit which will enable me to pa.s.s as a wounded soldier making his way home. Then we will strike off from the main road and follow the lanes and get on some other road. They will inquire all along the road and will hear of a gentleman and two youths, and will for a while have that in their minds. No one will particularly notice us, and we shall get into Tours safely enough.

"We must never enter a house or town together, for they will be on the lookout for three people, and neither a soldier with his head bound up, nor two peasant girls, will attract attention. At Tours I will get a farmer's dress, and will buy a horse and cart, and a load of hay, and will pick you up outside the town. You can get on the hay, and can cover yourselves over if you see any hors.e.m.e.n in pursuit. After that it will be all easy work."

"Why could you not get the cart at Orleans, Rupert?" Adele asked.

"I might," he said; "but I think that the extra change would be best, as they would then have no clue whatever to follow. They will trace us to Orleans, and you may be sure that there will be a hot hue and cry, and it may be that the fact of a horse and cart having been sold would come out. They will not know whether we have made east, west, or south from there, so there will be a far less active search at Tours than there will at Orleans."

So the journey was carried out, and without any serious adventure; although with a great many slight alarms, and some narrow escapes of detection, which cannot be here detailed. The party arrived at the spot where the lane leading to the little farm occupied by Margot's mother left the main road. Here they parted, the girls taking their bundles, and starting to trudge the last few miles on foot.

Margot discreetly went on a little ahead, to give her mistress the opportunity of speaking to Rupert alone, but she need not have done so, for all that Rupert said was:

"I have been in the light of your brother this time, Adele, as your father gave you into my charge. If I ever come again, dear, it will be different."

"You are very good, Rupert. Goodbye;" and with a wave of the hand she ran after Margot; while Rupert, mounting the cart, drove on into Poitiers.

Here he sold his load of hay to a stable keeper, drove a mile or two out of the town, entered a wood, and then took the horse out of the cart, and leaving the latter in a spot where, according to all appearances, it was not likely to be seen for months, drove the horse still further into the wood, and, placing a pistol to its head, shot it dead. Then he renewed his disguise as a soldier, but this time dispensed with the greater part of his bandages, and set out on his return, in high spirits at having so successfully performed his journey.

He pursued his journey as far back as Blois without the slightest interruption, but here his tramp came to a sudden termination.

Secure in the excellence of his French, Rupert had attempted no disguise as to his face beyond such as was given by a strip of plaister, running from the upper lip to the temple. He strode gaily along, sometimes walking alone, sometimes joining some other wayfarer, telling every one that he was from Bordeaux, where he had been to see his parents, and get cured of a sabre cut.

As he pa.s.sed through the town of Blois, Rupert suddenly came upon a group of hors.e.m.e.n. Saluting as he pa.s.sed--for in those days in France no one of inferior rank pa.s.sed one of the upper cla.s.ses without uncovering--he went steadily on.

"That is a proper looking fellow," one of the party said, looking after him.

"By our Lady," exclaimed another, "I believe I have seen that head and shoulders before. Yes, I feel sure.

"Gentlemen, we have made a prize. Unless I am greatly mistaken, this is the villainous Englishman who it is believed aided that malapert young lady to escape."

In another moment Rupert was surrounded. His hat was knocked off; and the Duc de Carolan, for it was he, exclaimed in delight:

"I thought that I could not be mistaken. It is himself."

Rupert attempted no resistance, for alone and on foot it would have been hopeless.

The governor of the royal castle of Blois was one of the party, and Rupert found himself in another ten minutes standing, with guards on each side of him, before a table in the governor's room, with the governor and the Duc de Carolan sitting as judges before him.

"I have nothing to say," Rupert said, quietly. "I escaped from Lille because I had been, as I deemed it, unworthily treated in Paris. I had withdrawn my parole, and was therefore free to escape if I could. I did escape, but finding the frontier swarmed with French troops, I thought it safer to make for central France, where a wayfarer would not be looked upon as suspiciously as in the north. Here I am. I decline to answer any further questions.

"As to the lady of whom you question me, I rejoice to find, by the drift of your questions, that she has withdrawn herself from the persecution which she suffered, and has escaped being forced into marriage with a man she once described in my hearing as an ape in the costume of the day."

"And that is all you will say, prisoner?" the governor asked, while the Duc de Carolan gave an exclamation of fury.

"That is all, sir; and I would urge, that as an English officer I am ent.i.tled to fair and honourable treatment; for although I might have been shot in the act of trying to escape from prison, it is the rule that an escaping prisoner caught afterwards, as I am, should have fair treatment, although his imprisonment should be stricter and more secure than before.

"As to the other matter, there cannot be, I am a.s.sured, even a t.i.ttle of evidence to connect me with the event you mention. As far as I hear from you, I escaped on the 10th from Lille, which date is indeed accurate. Three days later Mademoiselle de Pignerolles left Versailles. The connection between the two events does not appear in any way clear to me."

"It may or it may not be," the governor said. "However, my duty is clear, to keep you here in safe ward until I receive his Majesty's orders."

Four days later the royal order came. Rupert was to be taken to the dreaded fortress prison of Loches, a place from which not one in a hundred of those who entered in ever came from alive.

Chapter 20: Loches.

"A British officer; broke out from Lille. Ah!" the Governor of Loches said to himself, as he glanced over the royal order.

"Something else beyond that, I fancy. Prisoners of war who try to break prison are not sent to Loches. I suppose he has been in somebody's way very seriously. A fine young fellow, too--a really splendid fellow. A pity really; however, it is not my business.

"Number four, in the south tower," he said, and Rupert was led away.

Number four was a cell on the third story of the south tower. More than that Rupert did not know. There was no looking out from the loopholes that admitted light, for they were boarded up on the outside. There was a fireplace, a table, a chair, and a bedstead.

Twice a day a gaoler entered with provisions; he made no reply to Rupert's questions, but shook his head when spoken to.

For the first week Rupert bore his imprisonment with cheerfulness, but the absolute silence, the absence of anything to break the dreary monotony, the probability that he might remain a prisoner all his life, was crushing even to the most active and energetic temperament.

At the end of a month the gaoler made a motion for him to follow him. Ascending the stairs to a great height, they reached the platform on the top of the tower.

Rupert was delighted with the sight of the sky, and of the wide-spreading fields--even though the latter was covered with snow. For a half-an-hour he paced rapidly round and round the limited walk. Presently the gaoler touched him, and pointing below, said:

"Look!"

Rupert looked over the battlement, and saw a little party issue from a small postern gate far below him, cross the broad fosse, and pause in an open s.p.a.ce formed by an outlying work beyond. They bore with them a box.

"A funeral?" Rupert asked.

The man nodded.

"They all go out at last," he said, "but unless they tell what they are wanted to tell, they go no other way."

Five minutes later Rupert was again locked up in his cell, when he was, in the afternoon of the same day, visited by the governor, who asked if he would say where he had taken Mademoiselle Pignerolles.

"You may as well answer," he said. "You will never go out alive unless you do."

Rupert shook his head.