as no longer there; the marquis, in his
haste to escape, had taken the first which came to hand, and this was the
soldier's. Then the soldier gave the alarm; his comrades woke up. They
ran to the prisoner's room, and found it empty. The provost came from
his bed in a dazed condition. The prisoner had escaped.

Then the young girl, pretending to have been roused by the noise,
hindered the preparations by mislaying the saddlery, impeding the
horsemen instead of helping them; nevertheless, after a quarter of an
hour, all the party were galloping along the road. The provost swore
like a pagan. The best horses led the way, and the sentinel, who rode
the marquis's, and who had a greater interest in catching the prisoner,
far outstripped his companions; he was followed by the sergeant, equally
well mounted, and as the broken fence showed the line he had taken, after
some minutes they were in view of him, but at a great distance. However,
the marquis was losing ground; the horse he had taken was the worst in
the troop, and he had pressed it as hard as it could go. Turning in the
saddle, he saw the soldiers half a musket-shot off; he urged his horse
more and more, tearing his sides with his spurs; but shortly the beast,
completely winded. foundered; the marquis rolled with it in the dust, but
when rolling over he caught hold of the holsters, which he found to
contain pistols; he lay flat by the side of the horse, as if he had
fainted, with a pistol at full cock in his hand. The sentinel, mounted
on a valuable horse, and more than two hundred yards ahead of his
serafile, came up to him. In a moment the marquis, jumping up before he
had tune to resist him, shot him through the head; the horseman fell, the
marquis jumped up in his place without even setting foot in the stirrup,
started off at a gallop, and went away like the wind, leaving fifty yards
behind him the non-commissioned officer, dumbfounded with what had just
passed before his eyes.

The main body of the escort galloped up, thinking that he was taken; and
the provost shouted till he was hoarse, "Do not kill him!" But they found
only the sergeant, trying to restore life to his man, whose skull was
shattered, and who lay dead on the spot.

As for the marquis, he was out of sight; for, fearing a fresh pursuit, he
had plunged into the cross roads, along which he rode a good hour longer
at full gallop. When he felt pretty sure of having shaken the police off
his