d of my
other guard was thrust in through the narrow opening. Down came my jug,
and the man dropped to his hands and knees, in the very act of drawing
his weapons. I struck him again, laying him prostrate. Then I dragged
him into the room, and tried to wrest his dagger from his grasp. Finding
this difficult, I ran back to the first guard, took his dagger from its
sheath as he was beginning to come to, wielded my jug once more to delay
his awakening, and, stepping over the second man's body, passed out of
the room. The man with the trencher had left the key in the lock. I
closed the door and turned the key, which I put in my pocket. I then
hastened down the stairs, fled along the deserted passage, descended the
main stairway to the story below, traversed without a moment's pause the
rooms leading to the picture gallery, crossed that and found the door at
the end unlocked, ran down the stairs of the Countess's former
apartments, unlocked the door to the garden, and sped along the walk
toward the postern. In all this, I had not seen a soul: I was carried
forward by a bracing resolve to accomplish my escape or die in
attempting it, as well as by an inspiriting faith in the saying of the
Latin poet that fortune favours the bold, and by a feeling that for me
everything depended on one swift, uninterrupted flight.

I gained the postern; fell on my knees by the nearest rose bush, and,
choosing a spot where the soil swelled a little, dug rapidly with the
dagger, throwing the earth aside with my hand. In my impatience, much
time seemed to go: I feared that here at last I was stayed: great drops
fell from my brow upon my busy hands: I trembled and could have wept for
vexation. But suddenly my dagger struck something hard, and in a moment
I grasped the key. It opened the lock. I stood upon the ledge outside,
and re-locked the door; then dashed across the plank over the moat, and
made for the forest.

I had no time to spare. My guards might be already returned to
consciousness and doing their best to alarm the house from within their
prison. Bloodhounds might soon be on my track. I ran along the edge of
the forest, therefore, which covered my movements till I was past the
village of St. Outrille, close to Montoire. I then altered my pace to a
walk, lest a running figure in the fields might attract the notice of
the Count's watchman on the tower; and, going in the lurching manner of
a rustic, came to a road by which I crossed the ri