I knew that if I could gain this road I would
be safe, but in the darkness I could not see any sign of it, so, in
blind hope of striking it, I ran on. Presently I came to the edge of a deep cut, and found that down below
me ran a road guarded on each side by a ditch of water fenced on either
side by a straight, high wall. Getting fainter and dizzier, I ran on; the ground got more broken—more
and more still, till I staggered and fell, and rose again, and ran on
in the blind anguish of the hunted. Again the thought of Alice nerved
me. I would not be lost and wreck her life: I would fight and struggle
for life to the bitter end. With a great effort I caught the top of the
wall. As, scrambling like a catamount, I drew myself up, I actually
felt a hand touch the sole of my foot. I was now on a sort of causeway,
and before me I saw a dim light. Blind and dizzy, I ran on, staggered,
and fell, rising, covered with dust and blood. “Halt la!”

The words sounded like a voice from heaven. A blaze of light seemed to
enwrap me, and I shouted with joy. “Qui va la?” The rattle of musketry, the flash of steel before my eyes. Instinctively I stopped, though close behind me came a rush of my
pursuers. Another word or two, and out from a gateway poured, as it seemed to me,
a tide of red and blue, as the guard turned out. All around seemed
blazing with light, and the flash of steel, the clink and rattle of
arms, and the loud, harsh voices of command. As I fell forward, utterly
exhausted, a soldier caught me. I looked back in dreadful expectation,
and saw the mass of dark forms disappearing into the night. Then I must
have fainted. When I recovered my senses I was in the guard room. They
gave me brandy, and after a while I was able to tell them something of
what had passed. Then a commissary of police appeared, apparently out
of the empty air, as is the way of the Parisian police officer. He
listened attentively, and then had a moment’s consultation with the
officer in command. Apparently they were agreed, for they asked me if I
were ready now to come with them. “Where to?” I asked, rising to go. “Back to the dust heaps. We shall, perhaps, catch them yet!”

“I shall try!” said I. He eyed me for a moment keenly, and said suddenly:

“Would you like to wait a while or till tomorrow, young Englishman?”
This touched me to the quick, as, perhaps, he intended, and I jumped to
my feet. “Come now!” I said; “now! now! An Englishman is always ready for his
duty!”

The commissary was a good fellow, as well as a shrewd one; he slapped
my shoulder kindly. “Brave garçon!” he said. “Forgive me, but I knew
what would do you most good. The guard is ready. Come!”

And so, passing right through the guard room, and through a long
vaulted passage, we were out into the night. A few of the men in front
had powerful lanterns. Through courtyards and down a sloping way we
passed out through a low archway to a sunken road, the same that I had
seen in my flight. The order was given to get at the double, and with a
quick, springing stride, half run, half walk, the soldiers went swiftly
along. I felt my strength renewed again—such is the difference between
hunter and hunted. A very short distance took us to a low-lying pontoon
bridge across the stream, and evidently very little higher up than I
had struck it. Some effort had evidently been made to damage it, for
the ropes had all been cut, and one of the chains had been broken. I
heard the officer say to the commissary:

“We are just in time! A few more minutes, and they would have destroyed
the bridge. Forward, quicker still!” and on we went. Again we reached a
pontoon on the winding stream; as we came up we heard the hollow boom
of the metal drums as the efforts to destroy the bridge was again
renewed. A word of command was given, and several men raised their
rifles. “Fire!” A volley rang out. There was a muffled cry, and the dark forms
dispersed. But the evil was done, and we saw the far end of the pontoon
swing into the stream. This was a serious delay, and it was nearly an
hour before we had renewed ropes and restored the bridge sufficiently
to allow us to cross. We renewed the chase. Quicker, quicker we went towards the dust heaps. After a time we came to a place that I knew. There were the remains of
a fire—a few smouldering wood ashes still cast a red glow, but the bulk
of the ashes were cold. I knew the site of the hut and the hill behind
it up which I had rushed, and in the flickering glow the eyes of the
rats still shone with a sort of phosphorescence. The commissary spoke a
word to the officer, and he cried:

“Halt!”

The soldiers were ordered to spread around and watch, and then we
commenced to examine the ruins. The commissary himself began to lift
away the charred boards and rubbish. These the soldiers took and piled
together. Presently he started back, then bent down and rising beckoned
me. “See!” he said. It was a gruesome sight. There lay a skeleton face downwards, a woman
by the lines—an old woman by the coarse fibre of the bone. Between the
ribs rose a long spike-like dagger made from a butcher’s sharpening
knife, its keen point buried in the spine. “You will observe,” said the commissary to the officer and to me as he
took out his note book, “that the woman must have fallen on her dagger. The rats are many here—see their eyes glistening among that heap of
bones—and you will also notice”—I shuddered as he placed his hand on
the skeleton—“that but little time was lost by them, for the bones are
scarcely cold!”

There was no other sign of any one near, living or dead; and so
deploying again into line the soldiers passed on. Presently we came to
the hut made of the old wardrobe. We approached. In five of the six
compartments was an old man sleeping—sleeping so soundly that even the
glare of the lanterns did not wake them. Old and grim and grizzled they
looked, with their gaunt, wrinkled, bronzed faces and their white
moustaches. The officer called out harshly and loudly a word of command, and in an
instant each one of them was on his feet before us and standing at
“attention!”

“What do you here?”

“We sleep,” was the answer. “Where are the other chiffoniers?” asked the commissary. “Gone to work.”

“And you?”

“We are on guard!”

“Peste!” laughed the officer grimly, as he looked at the old men one
after the other in the face and added with cool deliberate cruelty:
“Asleep on duty! Is this the manner of the Old Guard? No wonder, then,
a Waterloo!”

By the gleam of the lantern I saw the grim old faces grow deadly pale,
and almost shuddered at the look in the eyes of the old men as the
laugh of the soldiers echoed the grim pleasantry of the officer. I felt in that moment that I was in some measure avenged. For a moment they looked as if they would throw themselves on the
taunter, but years of their life had schooled them and they remained
still. “You are but five,” said the commissary; “where is the sixth?” The
answer came with a grim chuckle.