“Oh, M. l’Ecuyer, have mercy!  Have pity upon me!  For Christ’s sake, pity!”

[Illustration:  “IN A FLASH HE WAS OUT OF THEIR GRASP, FLYING DOWN THE ALLEY.”]

His bravado had broken down at last.  He tried to fling himself at Vigo’s feet.  The guards relaxed their hold to see him grovel.

That was what he had hoped for.  In a flash he was out of their grasp, flying down the alley.

“To Vigo!  Vigo is attacked,” we heard him shout.

It was so quick, we stood dumfounded.  And then we dashed after, pell-mell, tumbling over one another in our stampede.  In the alley we ran against three or four of the guard answering Lucas’s cry.  We lost precious seconds disentangling ourselves and shouting that it was a ruse and our prisoner escaped.  When they comprehended, we all rushed together out of the passage, emerging among frightened horses and a great press of excited men.

XII

The Comte de Mar.

“Which way went he?”

“The man who just came out?”

“This way!”

“No, yonder!”

“Nay, I saw him not.”

“A man with bound hands, you say?”

“Here!”

“Down that way!”

“A man in black, was he?  Here he is!”

“Fool, no; he went that way!”

M. Etienne, Vigo, I, and the guardsmen rushed hither and thither into the ever-thickening crowd, shouting after Lucas and exchanging rapid questions with every one we passed.  But from the very first the search was hopeless.  It was dark by this time and a mass of people blocked the street, surging this way and that, some eagerly joining in the chase, others, from ready sympathy with any rogue, doing their best to hinder and confuse us.  There was no way to tell how he had gone.  A needle in a haystack is easy found compared with him who loses himself in a Paris crowd by night.

M. Etienne plunged into the first opening he saw, elbowing his way manfully.  I followed in his wake, his tall bright head making as good an oriflamme as the king’s plume at Ivry, but when at length we came out far down the street we had seen no trace of Lucas.

“He is gone,” said M. le Comte.

“Yes, monsieur.  If it were day they might find him, but not now.”

“No.  Even Vigo will not find him.  He is worsted for once.  He has let slip the shrewdest knave in France.  Well, he is gone,” he repeated after a minute.  “It cannot be mended by me.  He is off, and so am I.”

“Whither, monsieur?”

“That is my concern.”

“But monsieur will see M. le Duc?”

He shook his head.

“But, monsieur—­”

He broke in on me fiercely.

“Think you that I—­I, smirched and sullied, reeking with plots of murder—­am likely to betake myself to the noblest gentleman in France?”

“He will welcome M. le Comte.”