From the moment that I had left Canaples as the
Angelus was ringing, until the moment when our panting horses gained the
brow of that little eminence, only half an hour had sped. Still in that
half-hour the tints had all but faded from the sky, and the twilight
shadows grew thicker around us with every moment. Yet not so thick had
they become but that I could see a coach at a standstill in the hollow,
some three hundred yards beneath us, and, by it, half a dozen horses, of
which four were riderless and held by the two men who were still mounted.
Then, breathlessly scanning the field between the road and the river, I
espied five persons, half way across, and at the same distance from the
water that we were from the coach. Two men, whom I supposed to be St.
Auban and Vilmorin, were forcing along a woman, whose struggles, feeble
though they appeared--yet retarded their progress in some measure. Behind
them walked two others, musket on shoulder.
I pointed them out to Michelot with a soft cry of joy. We were in time!
Following with my eyes the course they appeared to be pursuing I saw by the
bank a boat, in which two men were waiting.
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