Part 9 (1/2)
”Hold off!” said Risque, in his old, hard, measured way; ”we guards go armed; if you move, I shall scatter your brains in the snow; if I miss you, a note of this whistle will summon my postilions.”
The cold face was never more emotionless; he held a revolver in his hand, and kept the other in his blank, spotted eye, as if locating the vital parts with the end to bring him down at a shot.
”You do not play well,” said Risque at length, when the other, ghastly white, sat speechless upon the parapet; ”if you were the student of chance, that I have been, you would know that at murder the odds are always against you!”
”You will not betray me?” pleaded Plade; ”so inveterate a gamester can have no conventional ideas of life or crime. I am ready to pay for your discretion with half my winnings.”
”I am a gambler,” said Risque, curtly; ”not an a.s.sa.s.sin! I always give my opponents fair show. But I will not touch blood-money.”
”What fair show do you give me?”
”Two hours' start. I am responsible for my pa.s.sengers. Go on, unharmed, if you will. But at Hospice I shall proclaim you. Every moment that you falter spins the rope for your gallows!”
Plade did not dally, but took to flight at once. He climbed by the angles of the terraces, and saw the diligence far below tugging up the circuitous road. He ran at full speed; no human being was abroad besides, but yet there were other footfalls in the snow, other sounds, as of a man breathing hard and pursued upon the lonely mountain. The fugitive turned--once, twice, thrice; he laughed aloud, and shook his clenched hand at the sky. Still the flat, dead tramp followed close behind, and the pace seemed not unfamiliar. It could not be--his blood ceased to circulate, and stood freezing at the thought--was it the march, the tread of Hugenot?
He dropped a loud curse, like a howl, and kept upon his way. The footfalls were as swift; he saw their impressions at his heels--prints of a small, lithe, human foot, made by no living man. He shut his eyes and his ears, but the consciousness remained, the inexplicable phenomenon of some invisible but familiar thing which would not leave him; which made its register as it pa.s.sed; which no speed could outstrip, no argument exorcise.
Was it a sick fancy, a probed heart, or did the phantom of the dead man indeed give chase?
Ah! there is but one cla.s.s of folks whose faith in spirits nothing can shake--the guilty, the b.l.o.o.d.y-handed.
He came to a perturbed rest at the huge, half-hospitable Hospice, to the enthusiasm of the postilions.
”Will the gentleman have a saddle-horse?”
”A chariot?”
”A cabriolet?”
”Ten francs to Andermatt!”
”Thirty francs to Fluelen!”
”One hundred francs,” cried Plade, ”for the fleetest pony to Andermatt.
Ten francs to the postilion who can saddle him in two minutes. My mother is dying in Lyons.”
He climbed one of the dark flights of stairs, and an old, uncleanly monk gave him a gla.s.s of Kerschwa.s.ser. He descended to the stables, and cursed the Swiss lackeys into speed. He gave such liberal largess that there was an involuntary cheer, and as he galloped away the great diligence appeared in sight to rouse his haste to frenzy.
The telegraph kept above him--a single line; he knew the tardiness of foot when pursued by the lightning. In one place, the conductor, wrenched from the insulators, dropped almost to the ground. There was a strap upon his saddle; he reined his nag to the side of the road, and, making a knot about the wire, dashed off at a bound; the iron snapped behind; his triumphant laugh pealed yet on the twilight, when the cries of his pursuers rang over the fields of snow. They were aroused; he was fleetly mounted, but they came behind in sledges.
The night closed over the road as he caught the wizard bells. The moonlight turned the peaks to fire. The dark firs shook down their burdens of snow. There were cries of wild beasts from the ravines below.
The post-houses were red with firelight. The steed floundered through the snow-drifts driven by blow and halloo. It was a fearful ride upon the high Alps; the sublimity of nature bowed down to the mystery of crime!
Bright noon, on the third day succeeding, saw the fugitive emerge from the railway station at Dieppe. He had escaped the Swiss frontier with his life, but had failed to make sure that escape by reaching the harbor at the appointed time. Broken in spirit, grown old already, he faltered toward the town, and, stopping on the fosse-bridge, looked sorrowfully across the s.h.i.+pping in the dock. Something caught his regard amid the cloud of tri-color; he looked again, shading his eye with a tremulous palm. There could not be a doubt--it was the Confederate standard--the Stars and Bars.
The Planter had been delayed; she waited with steam up and an expectant crew; her slender masts leaned against the sky; her anchor was lifted; a knot of idlers watched her from the quay.
In a moment Mr. Plade was on board. He asked for the commander, and a short, gristly, sunburnt personage being indicated, he introduced himself with that plausible speech which had wooed so many to their fall.
”I am a Charlestonian,” said Plade; ”a Yankee insulted me at the Grand Hotel; we met in the Bois de Boulogne, and I ran him through the body.