“On! on!” cried a man; “we will deliver him; do not strike the soldiers, but let them fall back.  See, Heaven will not permit him to die!  The fire is out; now, friend, one effort more!  That is well!  Throw down that horse!  Forward!  On!”

The guard was broken and dispersed on all sides.  The crowd rushed to the pile, but no more light was there:  all had disappeared, even the executioner.  They tore up and threw aside the beams; one of them was still burning, and its light showed under a mass of ashes and ensanguined mire a blackened hand, preserved from the fire by a large iron bracelet and chain.  A woman had the courage to open it; the fingers clasped a small ivory cross and an image of St. Magdalen.

“These are his remains,” she said, weeping.

“Say, the relics of a martyr!” exclaimed a citizen, baring his head.

CHAPTER VI

THE DREAM

Meanwhile, Cinq-Mars, amid the excitement which his outbreak had provoked, felt his left arm seized by a hand as hard as iron, which, drawing him from the crowd to the foot of the steps, pushed him behind the wall of the church, and he then saw the dark face of old Grandchamp, who said to him in a sharp voice: 

“Sir, your attack upon thirty musketeers in a wood at Chaumont was nothing, because we were near you, though you knew it not, and, moreover, you had to do with men of honor; but here ’tis different.  Your horses and people are at the end of the street; I request you to mount and leave the town, or to send me back to Madame la Marechale, for I am responsible for your limbs, which you expose so freely.”

Cinq-Mars was somewhat astonished at this rough mode of having a service done him, was not sorry to extricate himself thus from the affair, having had time to reflect how very awkward it might be for him to be recognized, after striking the head of the judicial authority, the agent of the very Cardinal who was to present him to the King.  He observed also that around him was assembled a crowd of the lowest class of people, among whom he blushed to find himself.  He therefore followed his old domestic without argument, and found the other three servants waiting for him.  Despite the rain and wind he mounted, and was soon upon the highroad with his escort, having put his horse to a gallop to avoid pursuit.

He had, however, hardly left Loudun when the sandy road, furrowed by deep ruts completely filled with water, obliged him to slacken his pace.  The rain continued to fall heavily, and his cloak was almost saturated.  He felt a thicker one thrown over his shoulders; it was his old valet, who had approached him, and thus exhibited toward him a maternal solicitude.

“Well, Grandchamp,” said Cinq-Mars, “now that we are clear of the riot, tell me how you came to be there when I had ordered you to remain at the Abbe’s.”