Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/365

1868.] do it, but for Jean I could do anything. I should enjoy fighting those fellows, and I never would be taken."

"I will lead you to the entrance," Houghton said, coldly. "We will not hurry. No one can overtake us before you are safely out of sight. Save your breath for your subterranean journey, for you will have to travel more than two miles before you reach the dock."

They slackened their speed until they reached a little knoll in the swampy land. On the farther side of this, Houghton said:

"Go down to the other side of that clump of trees, straight across the field beyond, you will see it is but a few rods—you will find the sewer—I cannot tell you how, but you can get in; but leave no startling traces of your presence.

"The idea is new; they will not suspect. Stay, give me your cap, and take this slouched hat and cloak. I will lead them on up the field. I believe you are safe."

Bernard wrung his hand with the grasp of gratitude. Something prompted him to say—

"I cannot, but Jean will thank you."

The smile that answered him was cold as moonlight upon snow.

Bernard had left him, and was speeding onward as Houghton had directed.

Houghton stood one instant looking at him as he ran on.

"Yes," he said to himself, "it is then, indeed, true that Jean will thank me for this. Well, her happiness is always first. It is for her that I have done this. That man cannot be guilty of crime with such a face. He will return, or if he does not, his memory will be dearer to her than any living lover."

Then, the officer, whose horse had floundered in the meadow, and refused to go farther, came struggling on on foot, just in sight in the distance.

Houghton started on, slanting off from the direction Bernard had taken.

He had gone perhaps a mile, and was thinking with a satirical smile of the futile efforts of his pursuer, when, as he sprang through an opening in a hedge, he came full upon two horsemen, who spurred upon him with the eagerness of a long-baffled attempt.

He yielded instantly, and was taken to the village, where he was immediately recognized for himself, not for the escaped prisoner.

"Bah!" said the officer who had followed him, "do you say that that fellow answers to the description of a man with blue eyes and light beard?"

Bernard, in the reeking atmosphere of that underground passage, struggled onward in the darkness. If he could have lost himself, he would have done so half a dozen times before he had gone half a mile; but he had but to press onward, as there was no branching tunnel.

The damp, cool air, or what was all there was of air, was thickened with the horrible exhalations of the place; and once his foot hit upon the soft, slimy coat of a rat, who boldly wandered, with his thousand companions, through his undisturbed paradise.

Bernard shuddered, and shrank at every step in the ooze of the bottom, but his steps were bold and determined, and he splashed onward with breath half abated.

Half an hour of such walking, slow at best, and he thought he had been in the sewer hours, and began looking eagerly forward to the glimmer of light that should announce the end of his journey.

The only noise he heard was the sound of his own footsteps, the drip of the