the enthusiasm of the postilions.[Pg 80]

[Pg 80]

"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 glass of Kerschwasser. 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[Pg 81] 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!

[Pg 81]

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 

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