Belle-Rose — page 300: what you’re looking at

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

THE ABBESS OF THE CONVENT OF ST. CLAIRE. 289 upon the pale sky. At this sight Bouletord, who divined the intention of the fugitives, uttered a cry of rage and pricked his horse with the point of his sword. His archers imitated him; they seemed to devour the ground. Déroute | measured with his glance the distance which lay between Belle-Rose: and the abbey; it was sufficient to make it probable that Bouletord would reach the captain before he had crossed it. ‘*Now is the time,’’ said the sergeant. . He stopped his horse, took the musket hung to the saddle-horn, and loaded it. When Déroute turned toward - Bouletord, a terrible expression was depicted. upon his face. He lowered his musket and held his enemy under his aim for the space of ten seconds;:his arm seemed of iron like the barrel, so immovable was it. When Bouletord was not more than about thirty steps away, he fired. Bouletord let go the reins and fell upon the horse’s neck. His hand seized the mane and held to it; the frightened horse flew like an arrow and passed before Déroute, carry- ing away its rider, whose livid head beat its flanks. The ball had struck the quartermaster in the forehead. At the end of a hundred steps Bouletord slipped from the horse ~- and fell at the feet of Belle-Rose, who seized the horse by the bridle‘and stopped it. Monsieur de Charny was follow- ing Bouletord at the head of the archers. Grippard, as the reader knows, imagined that in everything it was best to imitate Déroute. Just as Déroute took his musket, Grip- pard took his, when Déroute took aim at Bouletord, Grippard sought something to place at the end of his barrel. Monsieur de Charny came in very nicely. After the sergeant’s shot, Grippard, like a conscientious man, pressed the trigger with his finger. But Monsieur de ~ Charny’s horse having reared at the first explosion, Grip- pard’s ball, which should have struck Monsieur de Charny, struck the beast instead. ‘The horse fell upon its hocks, rose, and fell again, drawing Monsieur de Charny down with it in its fall. The police, seeing their two chiefs stretched out on the ground, came to a sudden stop; two or three archers dismounted in order to assist Monsieur de Charny, the others discharged their muskets at Déroute and Grippard; but Grippard and Déroute were already flying in the direction of the abbey; the balls whistled in their ears, and that was all. Monsieur de Pomereux, at the head of his lackeys, galloped behind the archers and appeared to take a keen interest in the incidents of this skirmish. As soon as he was near Monsieur de Charny he .S co GOmicboo