Pierre, with some brandy he luckily had with him, bathed his master’s temples, and forced a few drops between his lips; and, when the Count had recovered, he whipped up his horse and galloped to Paris, growling, with a shrug of the shoulders: 

“There must have been a woman in this.  Curse the women!  They make all the trouble in the world.”

It was daybreak when the coup reached Paris.

Pierre heard, as they passed the barrier, a laborer say to his mate

“That’s a fine turnout.  I wish I was in the place of the one who is riding inside!”

“So do I!” returned the other.

And Pierre thought, philosophically:  “Poor fools!  If they only knew!”

CHAPTER XVIII

“There is no need of accusing anyone.”

At the first streak of daylight, Marsa descended, trembling, to the garden, and approached the little gate, wondering what horror would meet her eyes.

Rose-colored clouds, like delicate, silky flakes of wool, floated across the blue sky; the paling crescent of the moon, resembling a bent thread of silver wire, seemed about to fade mistily away; and, toward the east, in the splendor of the rising sun, the branches of the trees stood out against a background of burnished gold as in a Byzantine painting.  The dewy calm and freshness of the early morning enveloped everything as in a bath of purity and youth.

But Marsa shuddered as she thought that perhaps this beautiful day was dawning upon a dead body.  She stopped abruptly as she saw the gardener, with very pale face, come running toward her.

“Ah, Mademoiselle, something terrible has happened!  Last night the dogs barked and barked; but they bark so often at the moon and the shadows, that no one got up to see what was the matter.”

“Well—­well?” gasped Marsa, her hand involuntarily seeking her heart.

“Well, there was a thief here last night, or several of them, for poor Ortog is half strangled; but the rascals did not get away scot free.  The one who came through the little path to the pavilion was badly bitten; his tracks can be followed in blood for a long distance a very long distance.”

“Then,” asked Marsa, quickly, “he escaped?  He is not dead?”

“No, certainly not.  He got away.”

“Ah!  Thank heaven for that!” cried the Tzigana, her mind relieved of a heavy weight.

“Mademoiselle is too good,” said the gardener.  “When a man enters, like that, another person’s place, he exposes himself to be chased like a rabbit, or to be made mincemeat of for the dogs.  He must have had big muscles to choke Ortog, the poor beast!—­not to mention that Duna’s teeth are broken.  But the scoundrel got his share, too; for he left big splashes of blood upon the gravel.”

“Blood!”

“The most curious thing is that the little gate, to which there is no key, is unlocked.  They came in and went out there.  If that idiot of a Saboureau, whom General Vogotzine discharged—­and rightly too, Mademoiselle—­were not dead, I should say that he was at the bottom of all this.”