I drew the thick air to my lung depths.  The man who would breathe no more was not as rigid as I stood.  But there was no use in attempting such a thing!

The turnkey opened a gap of doorway through which he could see the candles and the bed.  He opened no wider than the breadth of the priest, who stepped out as the sacristan bent for the portables.

There was lightning in my arm as it took the sacristan around the neck and let him limp upon the stones.  The tail of the priest’s cassock was scarcely through the door.

“Eh bien! sacristan,” called the turnkey.  “Make haste with your load.  I have this death to report.  He is not so pretty that you must stand gazing at him all night!”

I had the surplice over the sacristan’s head and over mine, and backed out with my load, facing the room.

If my jailer had thrust his candle at me, if the priest had turned to speak, if the man in the cell had got his breath before the bolt was turned, if my white surplice had not appeared the principal part of me in that black place—.

It was impossible!—­but I had done it.

V

The turnkey’s candle made a star-point in the corridor.  He walked ahead of the priest and I walked behind.  We descended to the entrance where the man with the big book sat taking stock of another wretch between officers.  I saw as I shaded my face with the load, that his inattentive eye dwelt on my surplice, which would have passed me anywhere in France.

“Good-night, monsieur the cure,” said the turnkey, letting us through the outer door.

“Good-night, good-night,” the priest responded.

“And to you, sacristan.”

“Good-night,” I muttered, and he came a step after me.  The candle was yet in his hand, showing him my bulk, and perhaps the small clothes he had longed to vend.  I expected hue and cry, but walked on after the priest, and heard the heavy doors jar, and breathed again.

Hearkening behind and in front, on the right and the left, I followed him in the direction of what I have since learned to call the Jardin des Plantes.  It is near Ste. Pelagie.

The priest, wearied by his long office, spoke only once about the darkness; for it was a cloudy night; and did not attend to my muttered response.  I do not know what sympathy the excellent old man might have shown to an escaped prisoner who had choked his sacristan, and I had no mind to test it.  He turned a corner, and with the wall angle between us, I eased down the sacred furniture, drew off the surplice and laid that upon it, and took to my heels up the left hand street; for the guard had brought me across the river to Ste. Pelagie.

I had no hat, and the cut of my coat showed that I had lost a waistcoat.  Avoiding the little circles of yellowness made by lamp posts, I reached without mishap of falling into the hands of any patrol, a bridge crossing to an island point, and from the other side of the point to the opposite shore.  At intervals along the parapet dim lights were placed.