d-night, good-night," the priest responded.

"And to you, sacristan."

"Good-night," I muttered, and he came a step after me. The candle was
yet in his hand, showing him my bulk, and perhaps the small clothes he
had longed to vend. I expected hue and cry, but walked on after the
priest, and heard the heavy doors jar, and breathed again.

Hearkening behind and in front, on the right and the left, I followed
him in the direction of what I have since learned to call the Jardin des
Plantes. It is near Ste. Pelagie.

The priest, wearied by his long office, spoke only once about the
darkness; for it was a cloudy night; and did not attend to my muttered
response. I do not know what sympathy the excellent old man might have
shown to an escaped prisoner who had choked his sacristan, and I had no
mind to test it. He turned a corner, and with the wall angle between us,
I eased down the sacred furniture, drew off the surplice and laid that
upon it, and took to my heels up the left hand street; for the guard had
brought me across the river to Ste. Pelagie.

I had no hat, and the cut of my coat showed that I had lost a waistcoat.
Avoiding the little circles of yellowness made by lamp posts, I reached
without mishap of falling into the hands of any patrol, a bridge
crossing to an island point, and from the other side of the point to the
opposite shore. At intervals along the parapet dim lights were placed.

Compared to Lake George, which wound like a river, and the mighty St.
Lawrence as I remembered it, the Seine was a narrow stream. Some boats
made constellations on the surface. The mass of island splitting it into
two branches was almost the heart of Paris. There were other foot
passengers on the bridge, and a gay carriage rolled by. I did not see
any gendarmes, and only one foot passenger troubled me.

I was on the bridge above the left arm of the river when an ear trained
in the woods caught his footstep, pausing as mine paused, and hurrying
as mine hurried. If the sacristan had been found in Ste. Pelagie a
pursuer would not track me so delicately, and neither would Skenedonk
hold back on the trail. I stopped in the shade when we two were alone on
the second span, and wheeled, certain of catching my man under the
flare of a cresset. I caught him, and knew that it was Bellenger
following me.

My mind was made up in an instant. I walked back to settle matters with
him, though slaughter was far from my thoughts. I had done h