Page:Stanley Weyman--Count Hannibal.djvu/241

Rh Or so he thought. Yet the first horseman, riding carelessly with his face averted and his feet dangling, would have gone by and seen nothing if his horse, more watchful, had not shied. The man turned then; and for a moment the two stared at one another between the pricked ears of the horse. At last—

“M. de Tignonville!” the minister ejaculated.

“La Tribe!”

“It is truly you?”

“Well—I think so,” the young man answered.

The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call the trees and the clouds and the birds to witness.

“Now,” he cried, “I know that I am chosen! And that we were instruments to do this thing from the day when the hen saved us in the haycart in Paris! Now I know that all is forgiven and all is ordained, and that the faithful of Angers shall to-morrow live and not die!” And with a face radiant, yet solemn, he walked to the young man’s stirrup.

An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him. “How far ahead are they?” he asked. His tone, hard and matter-of-fact, was little in harmony with the other’s enthusiasm.

“They are resting a league before you, at the ferry. You are in pursuit of them?”

“Yes.”

“Not alone?”

“No.” The young man’s look as he spoke was grim. “I have five behind me—of your kidney, M. la Tribe. They are from the Arsenal. They have lost one his wife, and one his son. The three others”

“Yes?”

“Sweethearts,” Tignonville answered dryly. And he cast a singular look at the minister.

But La Tribe’s mind was so full of one matter, he could think only of that.