Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 182: what you’re looking at

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

168 A TRAP. which he was going to accomplish. The road followed by the three cavaliers crossed a small wooded valley. At the extremity of the valley a chateau was to be seen. “This is the place,’’ said Conrad, pointing out the chateau with his finger. As they were passing along a copse Déroute heard a noise of troubled underbrush. Conrad quickly turned his head. ‘‘Some boar is leaving its lair,’’ he smilingly said. Déroute slipped his right hand under his holsters, seized the butt-end of a pistol, and leaning toward Belle-Rose, whispered in his ear: ‘Take care, my lieutenant; we are in the enemy’s country.”’ Belle-Rose paused and looked uielie around him. All at once the hoofs of a horse were heard striking a pebble. “Oh! oh!’’ said Déroute, “here is a horse whose feet are shod. ’”’ The Lorraine suddenly raised his hand and fired a pistol at the sergeant; but the sergeant had his eye upon him; throwing himself upon the horse’s neck, he answered the Lorraine’s movement by a similar one, and the two shots were fired almost at the same time. The Lorraine’s ball passed over the sergeant’s head. ‘‘Ah! my friend!’’ exclaimed Déroute, returning ball for ball, ‘‘you are too awkward for the trade you carry on.”’ The sergeant’s shot went through the Lorraine’s arm and struck his horse’s head. The wounded animal neighed with pain, reared itself, and left like an arrow. At the end of a hundred steps it entered a morass whose green water was covered with grass; at the first bound he sank up to his quarters in the mire; a violent dig of the spur caused him to rise; he plunged forward, got involved in the mud and rolled over in the water. For one moment the horse’s legs were seen to beat the surface of the morass in the convulsions of agony; the hands of Conrad were stiffened as they clung to the saddle; a furious bound brought his head above the bed of grass which was stifling him. ‘‘Come to me!’’ he cried, in a panting voice; but the horse sank down, and the Lorraine disappeared under the water. All this scene had transpired in a min- ute; just as the two pistol-shots were fired, a troop of cavaliers appeared upon the edge of the wood. At their head rode Monsieur de Villebrais. Déroute looked behind him; three or four men were guarding the path; decidedly (E(0) micooo S (eo) ee Fe wehn ki ty » “oY ST