Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/38

 were there before. In an instant light gleamed on bayonets and pike-heads and a sword. It was the patrouille grise—the night patrol upon their rounds. The alley was a cul-de-sac, the blank-faced stables were all barred and double-locked, behind him was the eight-foot cemetery wall, and anyone who ran or sought to hide was instantly suspect.

He drew a deep breath, swung Susette down to his side, supporting her with one arm around her waist beneath the cloak, and, staggering, half in simulation, half with the awkwardness of his burden, began to sing:

The hiccup terminating the ditty was a masterpiece of inebriety, and the brigadier commanding the patrol laughed sympathetically. He too enjoyed an evening in the wine shops. To guzzle good red wine and feel the amorous touch of little hands—parbleu, that was the man's life, not walking through the stinking alleys searching for aristocrats! "Hé, Citizen," he called, "you would best go home and sleep it off, that débauche. Mon Dieu, but you are drunk like a pig—lucky one!"

streets were gray and empty, like the veins of a corpse from which the blood has been drained slowly; a hard dull-pewter luminance, not light nor yet darkness, permeated the air, and the wind was damp and chilling as the breath from a forced-open tomb as Mordecai turned toward the river.

Here were the wharves, redolent with bilge and brackish water and the strange scents of cargoes from far away. Ships' masts and yard-arms barred the eastern sky like barriers at prison windows. The deserted quays echoed small sounds like an empty auditorium: the scuttering of rats' feet, the grind of oaken sides on piles, the groan of cables in hawse-holes.

Susette stirred and whimpered, like a child affrighted by a dream. He bent his head and kissed her lightly. "Safe, my darling—safe! Rest thou in my arms until the morning comes and shadows flee away"

The sky was gray as a soiled silver bowl, but morning-light was polishing it to brightness. Dawn was at the city gates, and Paris slept.

A ship's lamp glinted on the blade of a cutlas; the thump of sea-boots sounded on the flagstones as a sentry paced before the gangway of a clipper tied up at the quay. Though he was far away, the hymn-tune that he sang to while away his vigil sounded with an unmistakable New England accent:

"What ship is this?" Panting, staggering, all but spent, Mordecai approached the singing sailor, his precious burden clasped tight in his arms.

"She's th' Deborah out o' Boston town—howdy, Master Mordecai! Come aboard, we're waitin' fer ye," answered the seaman; then, with a bellow up the gangway:

"Hey, Cap'n Westhorne; they've arrove!"