I was desperate by this time, and savage
as a wild-cat--to snatch myself loose. In a second I was speeding down
the Rue Bons Enfants with the hue and cry behind me.

I have said, I was desperate. In an hour the world was changed for me.
In an hour I had broken with every tradition of safe and modest and
clerkly life; and from a sleek scribe was become a ragged outlaw flying
through the streets. I saw the gallows, I felt the lash sink like molten
lead into the quivering back, still bleeding from the stirrup-leathers:
I forgot all but the danger. I lived only in my feet, and with them made
superhuman efforts. Fortunately the light was failing, and in the dusk I
distanced the pack by a dozen yards. I passed the corner of the Palais
Royal so swiftly that the Queen's Guards, though they ran out at the
alarm, were too late to intercept me. Thence I turned instinctively to
the left, and with the cry of pursuit in my ears strained towards the
old bridge, intending to cross to the Cite, where I knew all the lanes
and byways. But the bridge was alarmed, the Chatelet seemed to yawn for
me--they were just lighting the brazier in front of the gloomy pile--and
doubling back, while the air roared with shouts of warning and cries of
"Stop thief! Stop thief!"--I evaded my pursuers, and sped up the narrow
Rue Troussevache, with the hue and cry hard on my heels.

I had no plan now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end
of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another;
with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears
the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase.
Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might
hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time--but in a
half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed--made an attempt to stop
me or trip me up.

Suddenly turning a corner--I had gained a quiet part where blind walls
lined an alley--I discovered a man running before me. At the same
instant the posse in pursuit quickened their pace in a last effort; I,
in answer, put forth my last strength, and in a dozen paces I came up
with the man. He turned to me, our eyes met as we ran abreast; desperate
myself, I read equal terror in his look, and before I could think what
it might mean, he bent himself sideways as he ran, and with a singular
movement flung a parcel he carried into my arms. Then wheeling abruptly
he plunged int