LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER XIII.

      PREPARATIONS.

       Table of Contents

      The Chouette returned to the room, bringing the cigars with her.

      "I don't think it rains now," said Rodolph, lighting his cigar. "Suppose we go and fetch the coach ourselves—it will stretch our legs."

      "What! not rain!" replied the Schoolmaster; "are you blind? Do you think I will expose Finette to the chance of catching cold, and exposing her precious life, and spoiling her new shawl?"

      "You are right, old fellow; it rains cats and dogs. Let the servant come and we can pay him, and desire him to fetch us a coach," replied Rodolph.

      "That's the most sensible thing you have said yet, young fellow; we may go and look about as we seek the Allée des Veuves."

      The servant entered, and Rodolph gave her five francs.

      "Ah, sir, it is really an imposition—I cannot allow it," exclaimed the Schoolmaster.

      "Oh, all right; your turn next time."

      "Be it so, but on condition that I shall offer you something, by and by, in a little cabaret in the Champs Elysées—a capital little snuggery that I know of."

      "Just as you like."

      The servant paid, and they left the room.

      Rodolph wished to go last, out of politeness to the Chouette, but the Schoolmaster would not allow it, and followed close on his heels, watching his every movement.

      The master of the house kept a wine-shop also, and amongst other drinkers, a charcoal-man, with his face blackened and his large hat flapping over his eyes, was paying his "shot" at the bar when these three personages appeared. In spite of the close lookout of the Schoolmaster and the one-eyed hag, Rodolph, who walked before the hideous pair, exchanged a rapid and unperceived glance with Murphy as he got into the hackney-coach.

      "Which way am I to go, master?" asked the driver.

      Rodolph replied, in a loud voice:

      "Allée des—"

      "Des Acacias, in the Bois de Boulogne," cried the Schoolmaster, interrupting him. Then he added, "And we will pay you well, coachman."

      The door was shut.

      "What the devil made you bawl out which way we were going before these people?" said the Schoolmaster. "If the thing were found out to-morrow, we might be traced and discovered. Young man—young man, you are very imprudent!"

      The coach was already in motion. Rodolph answered:

      "True; I did not think of that. But with my cigar I shall smoke you like herrings; let us have a window open."

      And, joining the action to the words, Rodolph, with much dexterity, let fall outside the window the morsel of paper, folded very small, on which he had hastily written a few words in pencil under his blouse. The Schoolmaster's glance was so quick, that, in spite of the calmness of Rodolph's features, the ruffian detected some expression of triumph, for, putting his head out of the window, he called out to the driver:

      "Whip behind! whip behind! there is some one getting up at the back of the coach!"

      The coach stopped, and the driver, standing on his seat, looked back, and said:

      "No, master, there is no one there."

      "Parbleu! I will look myself," replied the Schoolmaster, jumping out into the street.

      Not seeing any person or anything (for since Rodolph had dropped the paper the coach had gone on several yards), the Schoolmaster thought he was mistaken.

      "You will laugh at me," he said, as he resumed his seat, "but I don't know why I thought some one was following us."

      The coach at this moment turned round a corner, and Murphy, who had not lost sight of it with his eyes, and had seen Rodolph's manœuvre, ran and picked up the little note, which had fallen into a crevice between two of the paving-stones.

      At the end of a quarter of an hour the Schoolmaster said to the driver of the hackney-coach:

      "My man, we have changed our minds; drive to the Place de la Madelaine."

      Rodolph looked at him with astonishment.

      "All right, young man; from hence we may go to a thousand different places. If they seek to track us hereafter, the deposition of the coachman will not be of the slightest service to them."

      At the moment when the coach was approaching the barrier, a tall man, clothed in a long white riding-coat, with his hat drawn over his eyes, and whose complexion appeared of a deep brown, passed rapidly along the road, stooping over the neck of a high, splendid hunter, which trotted with extraordinary speed.

      "A good horse and a good rider," said Rodolph, leaning forward to the door of the coach and following Murphy (for it was he) with his eyes. "What a pace that stout man goes! Did you see him?"

      "Ma foi! he passed so very quickly," said the Schoolmaster, "that I did not remark him."

      Rodolph calmly concealed his satisfaction; Murphy had, doubtless, deciphered the almost hieroglyphic characters of the note which he had dropped, and which had escaped the vigilance of the Schoolmaster. Certain that the coach was not followed, he had become more assured, and desirous of imitating the Chouette, who slept, or rather pretended to sleep, he said to Rodolph:

      "Excuse me, young man, but the motion of the coach always produces a singular effect on me—it sends me off to sleep like a child."

      The ruffian, under the guise of assumed sleep, thought to examine whether the physiognomy of his companion betrayed any emotion; but Rodolph was on his guard, and replied:

      "I rose so early that I feel sleepy, and will have a nap, too."

      He shut his eyes, and very soon the hard breathing of the Schoolmaster and the Chouette, who snored in chorus, so completely deceived Rodolph, that, thinking his companions sound asleep, he half opened his eyes. The Schoolmaster and the Chouette, in spite of their loud snoring, had their eyes open, and were exchanging some mysterious signs by means of their fingers curiously placed or bent in the palms of their hands. In an instant this mute language ceased. The brigand no doubt perceived, by some almost imperceptible sign, that Rodolph was not asleep, and said, in a laughing tone:

      "Ah, ah, comrade! what, you were trying your friends, were you?"

      "That can't astonish you, who sleep with your eyes open."

      "I, who—That's different, young man; I am a somnambulist."

      The hackney-coach stopped in the Place de la Madelaine. The rain had ceased for a moment, but the clouds, driven by the violence of the wind, were so dark and so low, that it was almost night in appearance. Rodolph, the Chouette, and the Schoolmaster went towards the Cours la Reine.

      "Young man, I have an idea, which is not a bad one," said the robber.

      "What is it?"

      "To ascertain if all that you have told us respecting the interior of the house in the Allée des Veuves is true."

      "You surely will not go there now, under any circumstances? It would awaken suspicion."

      "I am not such a flat as that, young fellow; but why have I a wife whose name is Finette?"

      The Chouette drew up her head.

      "Do you see her, young man? Why, she looks like a war-horse when he hears the blast of the trumpet!"

      "You mean to send her as a lookout?"

      "Precisely so."

      "No. 17, Allée des Veuves, isn't it, my man?" cried the Chouette, impatiently. "Make yourself easy:

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