to join their companions, trying to devise some plan for Isabelle’s rescue, but feeling acutely how hopeless it was.  They found the others in the chariot waiting for them, just where the tyrant and Scapin had left them, for their false guide had put spurs to his horse and ridden off after his confederates, as soon as he became aware that their undertaking had proved successful.  When Herode asked an old peasant woman, who came by with a bundle of fagots on her back, how far it was to the Chateau de Pommereuil, she answered that there was no place of that name anywhere in the country round.  Upon being questioned closely, she said that she had lived in the neighbourhood for seventy years, knew every house within many leagues, and could positively assure them that there was no such Chateau within a day’s journey.  So it was only too evident that they were the dupes of the clever agents of the Duke of Vallombreuse, who had at last succeeded in getting possession of Isabelle, as he had sworn that he would do.  Accordingly, all of the party turned back towards Paris, excepting de Sigognac, the tyrant and Scapin, who had decided to go on to the next village, where they hoped to be able to procure horses, with which to prosecute their search for Isabelle and her abductors.

After the baron’s fall, she had been swiftly taken on to the other side of the thicket, where the carriage stood awaiting her; then lifted down from the horse and put into it, in spite of her frantic struggles and remonstrances.  The man who had held her in front of him got down also and sprang in after her, closing the door with a bang, and instantly they were off at a tremendous pace.  He seated himself opposite to her, and when she impetuously tried to pull aside the curtain, so that she could see out of the window nearest to her, he respectfully but firmly restrained her.

“Mademoiselle, I implore you to keep quiet,” he said, with the utmost politeness, “and not oblige me to use forcible means to restrain so charming and adorable a creature as your most lovely self.  No harm shall come to you—­do not be afraid!—­only kindness is intended; therefore I beseech you do not persist in vain resistance.  If you will only submit quietly, you shall be treated with as much consideration and respect as a captive queen, but if you go on acting like the devil, struggling and shrieking, I have means to bring you to terms, and I shall certainly resort to them.  This will stop your screaming, mademoiselle, and this will prevent your struggling.”

As he spoke he drew out of his pocket a small gag, very artistically made, and a long, thick, silken cord, rolled up into a ball.

“It would be barbarous indeed,” he continued, “to apply such a thing as this to that sweet, rosy mouth of yours, mademoiselle, as I am sure that you will admit—­or to bind together those pretty, delicate, little wrists, upon which no worse fetters than diamond bracelets should ever be placed.”