The Road to Paris Part 40

"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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 Ca.s.sel. Von Sungen, who had taken from one of them a second torch, now strode back to the barn with it. He found d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k had fought only one duel, but he had recently resumed practice with the foils under a French fencing-master at Ca.s.sel.

Moreover, Von Sungen was still fully under the excitement with which he had started on the pursuit, while with d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k 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 a.s.sistance. "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 d.i.c.k's feet.

"Poor Baroness von Luderwaldt!" said d.i.c.k, gently, wiping his sword with a wisp of hay.

Catherine seized d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.k to lead her to a horse.

When d.i.c.k and Romberg, having a.s.sisted Catherine to mount, went to help Gretel, the girl refused, saying she had thought to be of a.s.sistance to mademoiselle, but had found herself only an enc.u.mbrance. 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 d.i.c.k 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 detour 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 Ca.s.sel, 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 d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k 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 G.o.d's thunder, it is the traitor, Mesmer! So they have let him escape, after all!"

"Escape?" said d.i.c.k, with a grim kind of smile. "Do you call his falling into our hands an escape?" And d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k quickly ascertained that both were dead, then remounted his horse, seized the bridle of Catherine's, and spurred forward. Not a word pa.s.sed for some time, both indulging in silence the emotions produced by this latest swift tragedy. Presently d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k and Catherine, and explanations were quickly made. Gerard, having been released from Spangenberg some hours before the other two had left Ca.s.sel, 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 Ca.s.sel, 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 a.s.sured the St. Valiers of a moderate competency, and would make it possible for d.i.c.k to marry Catherine without fear of her being tied to dest.i.tution 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, in a low tone. "Let us lose no time in getting out of the city and territory of Frankfort."

"What is the matter?" asked d.i.c.k.

"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 pa.s.ser-by what house it was. It was that of the Landgrave's Frankfort resident. Wedeker is doubtless straight from Ca.s.sel, 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 d.i.c.k, giving his hand to Catherine.

In a few minutes the three fugitives rode westward through the Mainz gate, d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sed.

"We are not yet out of the territory appertaining to the city of Frankfort," said Gerard.

"And if we get out of it," said d.i.c.k, "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 d.i.c.k. "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 d.i.c.k came to a quick stop. "My beast is fresh," said Gerard.

"You'd best ride behind me."

d.i.c.k got off his own horse, and a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sed from its trembling limbs.

"The deuce!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "I imagine your beast is hardly fresh enough to carry three, Gerard?"