Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER III

The onset was so sudden and swift, and the animal had received such a powerful impetus from his spring, that the burly robber went down with a tremendous crash.

Man and dog rolled together in the dirt, upsetting tables and chairs and raising a terrible uproar. The desperate wretch plunged his knife again and again into the body of the enraged spaniel; the latter only clinched his teeth tighter and endeavored to tear his enemy by main brute strength.

Madame Podvin, having been diverted from her original purpose by this unexpected melee, set up a scream that would have drowned an active calliope.

”That's our bird!” shouted the man who had been serving as Fouchette's footman.

Whereupon his partner and the two agents from the Prefecture who had been waiting within fell upon the struggling pair.

It was all over in a few seconds.

Yet within that brief period Tartar lay dead from a knife-thrust in the heart, and the robber was extended alongside of his victim, his hands securely manacled upon his back.

”Hold on, gentlemen!” broke in M. Podvin at this juncture, having found his voice for the first time, ”what does this mean?”

”It means, my dear Podvin, that this amiable gentleman, who has always been so handy with his knife, is wanted at the Prefecture----”

”And that you are politely requested to accompany him,” added the other Central man, tapping M. Podvin on the shoulder.

”But, que diable!”

”Come! Madame will conduct the business all right, no doubt, while her patriot husband serves the State.”

”That cursed dog has finished me,” growled the prostrate robber.

”C'est egal! I've done for him and F---- If it had only been one of you, curse you!”

This benevolent wish was addressed to the police agent who was at that moment engaged in binding up the horrible wound in the man's throat.

Both were drenched with blood, partly from the dog and partly from the man. Le Cochon had been a.s.sisted to a sitting posture, sullen, revengeful, with murder in his black heart.

All at once his inflamed eyes rested upon something in the doorway. At first it was but casually, then fixedly, while the bloated face turned ashen.

He started to rise to his feet, and would have warded off the apparition with his hands, only they were laced in steel behind him, then, with a deep groan of terror, pitched forward upon his face, senseless.

It was Fouchette.

The others turned towards the doorway to see,--there was nothing there.

Cowering for a few moments in the darkest corner of the carriage, she had heard the voice of Tartar raised in anger, followed by the tumult.

The latter she had antic.i.p.ated with fear and trembling. She had divined at the last moment that these were agents of the police, and that the object was arrests. The noise of combat roused her fighting blood, the silence that so soon followed heated her curiosity to the boiling-point. It was intolerable. Perhaps the agents were being killed. The suspense was dreadful. She felt that she could not endure it another second.

The man had ordered her to remain in the carriage. The blinds were down; the coachman stood on the side next to the cabaret.

Come what might, she must know. So Fouchette slipped softly out on the opposite side and sneaked swiftly around the horses' heads.

The coachman on guard was for the same moment completely wrapped up in the riot that had been going on inside the Rendez-Vous pour Cochers; he saw the child just as she reached the doorway, and then he made a dash for her, grabbed her, and put her back in the carriage.