nd, he found the key, turned it,
and the gate flew open. Fate evidently did not wish him to perish.

Then, in the same way as he had shaken off Ortog, whom he could now hear
growling and stumbling over the gravel a little way off, Michel freed
his arm from Bundas, forcing his fingers and nails into the animal's
ears; and the moment he had thrown the brute to the ground, he dashed
through the gate, and slammed it to behind him, just as the two dogs
together were preparing to leap again upon him.

Then, leaning against the gate, and steadying himself, so as not to
fall, he stood there weak and faint, while the dogs, on the other side
of the wooden partition which now separated him from death--and what a
death! erect upon their hind legs, like rampant, heraldic animals, tried
to break through, cracking, in their gory jaws, long strips of wood torn
from the barrier which kept them from their human prey.

Michel never knew how long he remained there, listening to the hideous
growling of his bloodthirsty enemies. At last the thought came to him
that he must go; but how was he to drag himself to the place where
Pierre was waiting for him? It was so far! so far! He would faint twenty
times before reaching there. Was he about to fail now after all he had
gone through?

His left leg was frightfully painful; but he thought he could manage to
walk with it. His left shoulder and arm, however, at the least movement,
caused him atrocious agony, as if the bones had been crushed by the
wheel of some machine. He sought for his handkerchief, and enveloped
his bleeding arm in it, tying the ends of it with his teeth. Then he
tottered to a woodpile near by, and, taking one of the long sticks, he
managed with its aid to drag himself along the alley, while through the
branches the moon looked calmly down upon him.

He was worn out, and his head seemed swimming in a vast void, when he
reached the end of the alley, and saw, a short way off down the avenue,
the arch of the old bridge near which the coupe had stopped. One effort
more, a few steps, and he was there! He was afraid now of falling
unconscious, and remaining there in a dying condition, without his
coachman even suspecting that he was so near him.

"Courage!" he murmured. "On! On!"

Two clear red lights appeared-the lanterns of the coup. "Pierre!" cried
Michel in the darkness, "Pierre!" But he felt that his feeble voice
would not reach the coachman, who was doubtless asleep on hi