Belle-Rose — page 286: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY THE AID OF FIRE. 905 Tt is a spoiled affair,’’ he said to them; ‘return quickly.’’ ‘‘ Jacques? Cornelius?’’ said at the same time Suzanne and Claudine. “They are saved, think of yourselves.’’ Déroute pulled forward the two women; the silence was profound, but the dogs growled and rattled their chains. On quitting the two women Déroute ran to the dogs. Claudine knocked at the door, the attendant opened, and the same ruse which had protected Suzanne in going out protected her return. A quarter of an hour had sufficed to ruin their hopes; when Suzanne and Claudine knelt down before the image of Christ, the sonorous barking of Castor and Pollux resounded in the park. While Déroute hastened . to make disappear every trace of escape and to awaken Father Jerome to efface all suspicion of complicity im case - of accident, Bouletord and Grippard were searching along the wall, the one swearing, the other reasoning. ‘‘Sangdieu! he must be a sorcerer!’’ exclaimed Boule- tord, and he went along the wall, looking everywhere. At the end of fifty steps, his foot struck a dead body. ‘‘Here he is!’’ exclaimed the HATER AS Or, and he leaned over. Grippard shivered, but Bouletord rose like a re ‘‘Mordieu! it is one of my Own men whom they have killed,’’ said he; ‘‘he has been struck in the breast.’’ Bouletord took a whistle and blew it. At this signal, sey- eral archers posted here and there ran up. Around the dead body the soil was pressed by numerous steps, but the murderers had left no other trace of their passage. One of the archers declared, however, that two men enveloped in cloaks had approached the wall a quarter of an hour before Grippard’s cry; he had asked them for the word of order; the two men had given it to him, and he had let them pass, taking them for agents of Bouletord. “The word of order? they have given it to you?’’ ex- claimed Bouletord. ‘‘Parbleu! they must have stolen it,’’ replied Grippard. The silence around them was profound; it was necessary to renounce any enterprise for the night. Bouletord dis- tributed his men around the convent, and stretched him- self out under a tree with Grippard, his confidant. This is what had taken place: The same morning of the day fixed for the escape, Bouletord, walking in the direc- tion of the Rue Vangira d, had met Monsieur Mériset’s nephew leading four horses by their bridles. This nephew, Eomichbooks (G(@)