Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/132

 were there, on his heels. He cast a desperate glance around him. Everywhere he saw the level plain—without a rock, without a hollow, without a clump of trees, in which he could hide himself. Suddenly his eyes fell upon a shining pool of standing water, on the margin of which there was a growth of tall reeds, and he gasped:

"Let's try it."

He dragged himself to the pool, in which he hid himself up to the neck, drawing over his head the reeds and water-plants, then remained as motionless as if he had taken root in the mud.

The water had become still and smooth as a mirror when the twenty peasants arrived at the edge of the pool, preceded by the brigadier, who, thanks to the care of the landlord of the tavern, had speedily recovered from the stunning effects of the blows he had received.

"Now," cried Daddy Faucheux, from the back of his horse, and examining the country in all directions, "where in the name of wonder can that scoundrel have got to!"

"It's odd," said a young peasant; "five minutes ago I saw him plainly—and, now, not a glimpse of him! and yet the ground's flat and green for three leagues round, without so much as a mole's hole in which he could hide his nose."

"He can't be far off," said the brigadier. "Let us divide and spread over the plain, searching every bit of it, and coming back here last."

Pierre Picard heard the party disperse, uttering threats against him.

Still standing motionless in the pool, he trembled in every limb, and dared not change his position for fear of betraying his presence by agitating the water about him, or by deranging the reeds and water-plants with which he had covered his head. He passed an hour in this position, studying the sound of the steps crossing each other on the plain, of which his ears, eagerly strained, caught the least perceptible echoes.

At the end of that time the whole of the party were again collected about the pool.

"Thunder and lightning!" cried the brigadier, furiously; "the brigand has escaped us, but how the plague could he have done it?"

"He must be a sorcerer!" said a peasant.

"Sorcerer or not, I'll not give him up," replied Daddy Faucheux. I'll just give Sapajou time to swallow a mouthful of water at this pool, and we'll both slip off to the edge of the frontier, towards which the beggar is sure to make his way."

And turning his horse towards the pool, he reined him up just at the spot where the fugitive was hidden amid the tuft of reeds. The animal stretched forward his neck, sniffed the air strongly, then quickly