Part 41 (1/2)

I had had Gustave tie the boat to the bank before boarding it myself; I now invited the chevalier and his friends to come aboard. Leaving two of their comrades to hold their horses, the three others climbed down the bank and hastened to comply with my invitation. As they did so I saw Caesar dismount, tie his own horse and mine securely to two saplings, and clamber up the bank beside the hors.e.m.e.n. I thought his motive was probably to take advantage of this opportunity to stretch his legs, and perhaps also to indulge his curiosity with a nearer view of the French gentlemen, and I saw no reason to interfere--especially as the two gentlemen, young blades whom I knew by sight, not only offered no objections, but began at once to amuse themselves with his clownish manners and outlandish speech.

Of course the chevalier's quest was futile, as also was his examination of his three witnesses. They all stuck to their text,--the embarkation of Clotilde at four o'clock on the afternoon previous in Paris,--and Clotilde was as stupid as heart could desire, professing absolute ignorance of her mistress's plans, and knowing only that she herself was being sent home to America because she was homesick; and with a negress's love of gratuitous insult when she thinks she is safe in offering it, she added in her creole dialect:

”De Lord knows, I's sick o' white trash anyhow. I's mighty glad to be gittin' back to a country ob ladies and gen'lemen.”

The chevalier's two companions laughed, but the chevalier looked perplexed.

”Monsieur,” he said, with an air of exaggerated deference, ”I have discovered nothing on your boat, either by search or by examination of the witnesses, that can implicate you in any way with the flight of the Comtesse de Baloit. But will you permit me to ask you one important question? How does it happen that you are not riding Fatima, and that you are riding the horse which answers exactly to the description of the one the comtesse was riding when she disappeared?”

and the chevalier could not quite keep the tone of triumph out of his voice as he propounded his question. I had been expecting it, and I was prepared for it. I should have been much disappointed if he had not asked it.

”Monsieur,” I answered, ”Fatima met with a serious accident just after leaving Paris. I was obliged to leave her in the hands of a veterinary surgeon on the outskirts of St. Denis, who has also a small farm connected with his establishment for the care of sick horses. He promised me to take the best of care of her and to return her to me in America as soon as she was sufficiently recovered. I bought this horse from a dealer to whom the surgeon directed me. I cannot say whether it resembles the horse on which the Comtesse de Baloit left Paris; I did not see the comtesse when she left Paris.”

Which was the only truth in my statement; but I did not for a moment consider that I had told a lie, but only that I had employed a ruse, perfectly permissible in war, to throw the enemy off the track. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the bait.

”Will Monsieur give me the address of that horse-dealer?”

”With pleasure, as nearly as I am able,” and thereupon I described minutely a place in St. Denis that never existed. But St. Denis was only four miles this side of Paris, and should the chevalier go all the way back to find out from the mythical horse-dealer where he had procured my horse, much valuable time would be lost and mademoiselle would, I hoped, be beyond all risk of being overtaken.

By one little artifice and another we had already managed to delay them for a good three quarters of an hour, and now, by an apparently happy accident, as long a delay again was promised. A great noise of shouting and trampling of horses' hoofs arose on the bank above us.

We looked up and saw the five horses plunging frantically, with the two Frenchmen uttering excited cries as they tried to hold them, and Caesar doing his share in trying to hold the horses and more than his share in making a noise. As we looked, one of the horses broke away and started up the road toward Paris. The two Frenchmen dashed wildly in pursuit, each man leading a horse with him, and Caesar running on behind gesticulating madly, and bellowing at the top of his lungs.

I had taken advantage of the excitement of the fracas to slip from the post the rope that held us to the bank. We glided gently away down the river, with no one (unless it might have been Gustave, but he said nothing) noticing that we were moving until we were many yards below our mooring-place. The anger of the chevalier and his friends when they discovered it knew no bounds. Gustave was full of apologies for his carelessness, as he called it; I was dignified.

”Gustave,” I said severely, ”make a mooring as quickly as possible, that Monsieur le Chevalier and his friends may rejoin their horses.”

Gustave made all haste apparently, but without doubt he fumbled, and we were some two or three hundred yards farther down the river before we were finally tied to the bank.

”Good-by, Messieurs,” I said politely as the three hastened to leap ash.o.r.e. ”I trust you will have no difficulty in recovering your horses.”

They stayed not upon the order of their going, as Mr. Shakspere says, but scrambled up the bank and on to the hot and stony road, and the sun, now well up in the sky, beating strongly on their backs, they started at a round pace toward Paris, their horses by this time out of sight around a distant bend in the road.

Caesar had given up the pursuit and returned to where he had tied our horses. I signaled to him to bring them down the river, and mounting his and leading mine, he was soon at our mooring-place.

Riding down the soft turf of the shady bridle-path a few minutes later, I heard Caesar chuckling behind me. I turned in my saddle:

”What is it, Caesar?”

”I done it, Marsa!”

”Did what, Caesar?”

”Done mek dat hoss run away. I put a burr un'er his girth. Den when he plunged I cotched de bridle and let him loose. He, he, he! Hi, hi, hi!” and Caesar rolled in his saddle in convulsions of mirth, while the sh.o.r.e echoed to his guffaws.

I looked at him in astonishment for a moment. Then he had planned it all: tying the two horses, clambering up to the road, making himself the jest of the two Frenchmen, and all the time the burr concealed in his hand, no doubt, waiting his chance.

”Caesar, you are a general!” I said. ”Yorke could not have done better.” And then, his mirth being contagious, I threw back my head and laughed as long and as loud as he.

I turned in my saddle once more and looked up the road. Through the hot sun plodded the three figures: the chevalier with bent head and, I doubted not, with gnas.h.i.+ng teeth. I waved my hand toward him and called, though he could neither see nor hear: