He heaved a hollow sigh, glared at La Martinière with a terrible expression, and grasped his dagger. She silently commended her soul to God, but stood firm and looked him straight in the face, pressing herself more firmly against the door through which he would have to pass in order to reach her mistress.
“Let me get to your lady, I tell you!” he cried once more.
“Do what you will,” said La Martinière, “I shall not move from this spot. Complete the crime which you have begun. A shameful death on the Place de la Grève will overtake you, as it has your accursed comrades in wickedness.”
“Ha! you are right, La Martinière,” he cried. “I am armed, and I look as if I were an accursed robber and murderer. But my comrades are not executed—are not executed,” and he drew his dagger, advancing with poisonous looks towards the terrified woman.
“Jesus!” she cried, expecting her death-wound; but at that moment there came up from the street below the clatter and the ring of arms, and the hoof-tread of horses.
“La Marechausée! La Marechausée! Help! help!” she cried.
“Wretched woman, you will be my destruction,” he cried. “All is over now—all over! Here, take it; take it. Give this to your lady now, or tomorrow if you like it better.” As he said this in a whisper, he took the candelabra from her, blew out the tapers, and placed a casket in her hands. “As you prize your eternal salvation,” he cried, “give this to your lady.” He dashed out of the door, and was gone.
La Martinière had sunk to the floor. She raised herself with difficulty, and groped her way back in the darkness to her room, where she fell into an arm-chair, wholly overcome and unable to utter a sound. Presently she heard the rattling of the bolts, which she had left unfastened when she closed the house door. The house was therefore now shut up, and soft unsteady steps were approaching her room. Like one under a spell, unable to move, she was preparing for the very worst, when to her inexpressible joy the door opened, and by the pale light of the night-lamp she saw it was Baptiste. He was deadly pale, and much upset.
“For the love of all the saints,” he exclaimed, “tell me what has happened! Oh, what a state I am in. Something—don’t know what it was—told me to come away from the wedding yesterday—forced me to come away. So when I got to this street, I thought, Madame Martinière isn’t a heavy sleeper; she’ll hear me if I knock quietly at the door, and let me in. Then up came a strong patrol, horsemen and foot, armed to the teeth. They stopped me, and wouldn’t let me go. Luckily Desgrais was there, the lieutenant of the Marechaussée. He knows me, and as they were holding their lanterns under my nose, he said, ‘Ho, Baptiste! How come you here in the streets at this time of the night? You ought to be at home, taking care of the house. This is not a very safe spot just at this moment. We’re expecting to make a fine haul, and important arrest, tonight.’ You can’t think, Madame La Martinière, how I felt when he said that. And when I got to the door, lo! and behold! a man in a cloak comes bursting out with a drawn dagger in his hand, dodges me, and makes off. The door was open, the keys in the lock. What, in the name of all that’s holy, is the meaning of it all?”
La Martinière, relieved from her alarm, told him all that had happened, and both she and he went back to the hall; and there they found the candelabra on the floor, where the stranger had thrown it on taking his flight. “There can’t be the slightest doubt that our mistress was within an ace of being robbed, and murdered too very likely,” Baptiste said. “According to what you say, the scoundrel knew well enough that there was nobody in the house but her and you, and even that she was still sitting up at her writing. Of course he was one of those infernal blackguards who pry into folks’ houses and spy out everything that can be of use to them in their devilish designs. And the little casket, Madame Martinière, that I think we’ll throw into the Seine where it’s deepest. Who shall be our warrant that some monster or other isn’t lying in wait for our mistress’s life? Very likely, if she opens the casket, she may tumble down dead, as the old Marquis de Tournay did when he opened a letter which came to him, he didn’t know where from.”