"Lost!" exclaimed Michu. "All persons entering or leaving the barriers are examined. Malin has strong reasons to let my masters compromise themselves; he is seeking to get them killed out of his way.""And I, who don't know anything of the general plan of the affair,"cried Laurence, "how can I warn Georges, Riviere, and Moreau? Where are they?--However, let us think only of my cousins and the d'Hauteserres; you must catch up with them, no matter what it costs.""The telegraph goes faster than the best horse," said Michu; "and of all the nobles concerned in this conspiracy your cousins are the closest watched. If I can find them, they must be hidden here and kept here till the affair is over. Their poor father may have had a foreboding when he set me to search for this hiding-place; perhaps he felt that his sons would be saved here.""My mare is from the stables of the Comte d'Artois,--she is the daughter of his finest English horse," said Laurence; "but she has already gone sixty miles, she would drop dead before you reached them.""Mine is in good condition," replied Michu; "and if you did sixty miles I shall have only thirty to do.""Nearer forty," she said, "they have been walking since dark. You will overtake them beyond Lagny, at Coupvrai, where they expected to be at daybreak. They are disguised as sailors, and will enter Paris by the river on some vessel. This," she added, taking half of her mother's wedding-ring from her finger, "is the only thing which will make them trust you; they have the other half. The keeper of Couvrai is the father of one of their soldiers; he has hidden them tonight in a hut in the forest deserted by charcoal-burners. They are eight in all, Messieurs d'Hauteserre and four others are with my cousins.""Mademoiselle, no one is looking for the others! let them save themselves as they can; we must think only of the Messieurs de Simeuse. It is enough just to warn the rest.""What! abandon the Hauteserres? never!" she said. "They must all perish or be saved together!""Only petty noblemen!" remarked Michu.
"They are only chevaliers, I know that," she replied, "but they are related to the Cinq-Cygne and Simeuse blood. Save them all, and advise them how best to regain this forest.""The gendarmes are here,--don't you hear them? they are holding a council of war.""Well, you have twice had luck to-night; go! bring my cousins here and hide them in these vaults; they'll be safe from all pursuit--Alas! Iam good for nothing!" she cried, with rage; "I should be only a beacon to light the enemy--but the police will never imagine that my cousins are in the forest if they see me at my ease. So the question resolves itself into this: how can we get five good horses to bring them in six hours from Lagny to the forest,--five horses to be killed and hidden in some thicket.""And the money?" said Michu, who was thinking deeply as he listened to the young countess.
"I gave my cousins a hundred louis this evening," she replied.
"I'll answer for them!" cried Michu. "But once hidden here you must not attempt to see them. My wife, or the little one, shall bring them food twice a week. But, as I can't be sure of what may happen to me, remember, mademoiselle, in case of trouble, that the main beam in my hay-loft has been bored with an auger. In the hole, which is plugged with a bit of wood, you will find a plan showing how to reach this spot. The trees which you will find marked with a red dot on the plan have a black mark at their foot close to the earth. Each of these trees is a sign-post. At the foot of the third old oak which stands to the left of each sign-post, two feet in front of it and buried seven feet in the ground, you will find a large metal tube; in each tube are one hundred thousand francs in gold. These eleven trees--there are only eleven--contain the whole fortune of the Simeuse brothers, now that Gondreville has been taken from them.""It will take a hundred years for the nobility to recover from such blows," said Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, slowly.
"Is there a pass-word?" asked Michu.
"'France and Charles' for the soldiers, 'Laurence and Louis' for the Messieurs d'Hauteserre and Simeuse. Good God! to think that I saw them yesterday for the first time in eleven years, and that now they are in danger of death--and what a death! Michu," she said, with a melancholy look, "be as prudent during the next fifteen hours as you have been grand and devoted during the last twelve years. If disaster were to overtake my cousins now I should die of it--No," she added, quickly, "I would live long enough to kill Bonaparte.""There will be two of us to do that when all is lost," said Michu.
Laurence took his rough hand and wrung it warmly, as the English do.
Michu looked at his watch; it was midnight.
"We must leave here at any cost," he said. "Death to the gendarme who attempts to stop me! And you, madame la comtesse, without presuming to dictate, ride back to Cinq-Cygne as fast as you can. The police are there by this time; fool them! delay them!"The hole once opened, Michu flung himself down with his ear to the earth; then he rose precipitately. "The gendarmes are at the edge of the forest towards Troyes!" he said. "Ha, I'll get the better of them yet!"He helped the countess to come out, and replaced the stones. When this was done he heard her soft voice telling him she must see him mounted before mounting herself. Tears came to the eyes of the stern man as he exchanged a last look with his young mistress, whose own eyes were tearless.
"Fool them! yes, he is right!" she said when she heard him no longer.
Then she darted towards Cinq-Cygne at full gallop.
