Robert Chambers - The Girl Philippa

Warner, thoroughly aroused and excited, still maintained his grip on Halkett's arm.

"Did you ever see anything like it?" he said in a low voice. "It came like a bolt from the sky. That was the Coup du Père François . Did they get anything from you?"

Halkett spoke with difficulty, pressing his throat with his fingers and trying to smile.

"What they got," he said, "was meant for them to get – time-tables and a ticket to Paris. I don't intend to travel that way – " A fit of coughing shook him. " – For a moment I thought they'd actually broken my neck. What did you do to that fellow with his noose?"

"He fell on the table behind you. Everybody was piled up with the crockery. You wriggled out like a lizard." He turned cautiously and looked back over his shoulder. "Do you think we have been followed?"

"I can't see that we are."

They entered the rue d'Auros and turned into the Hôtel Boule d'Argent. Warner sent a chasseur to the stables for his horse and dogcart; Halkett hastened to collect his luggage.

In a few minutes the horse and cart came rattling out of the mews; luggage, canvases, and the sack of colors were placed in the boot; Warner mounted, taking reins and whip; Halkett sprang up beside him, and the groom freed the horse's head.

Into the almost deserted Boulevard d'Athos they went at a lively clip, circled the lovely church of Sainte Cassilda at the head of it, and trotted out into the broad highroad which swings cast to the river Récollette, and follows that pretty little stream almost due south to the hills and cliffs and woods and meadows of Saïs.

The sun hung low above the fields, reddening the roadside bushes and painting the tall ranks of poplars with vivid streaks of gold and rose.

Just outside the remains of the old town wall they passed through a suburban hamlet. That, except for a farm or two more, included the last houses this side of Saïs.

For a little while neither of the young men spoke; Halkett's cough had ceased, but now and then he fidgeted with his collar as though to ease it from the bruised throat. Warner drove, looking straight between his horse's ears, as though intently preoccupied with his navigation.

After a while Halkett said:

"The envelope is safe, I take it:"

"Oh, yes. They never noticed me until I hit one of them."

"I'm so grateful," said Halkett, "that it's quite useless for me to try to say so – "

"Listen! I'm enjoying it. I'm grateful to you , Halkett, for giving me the opportunity. I needed touching up." He laughed in sheer exhilaration. "We stodgy professional people ought to be stirred out of our ruts, A little mix-up like that with a prospect of others is exactly what I needed."

Halkett smiled rather dryly.

"Oh," he said. "If it strikes you that way, I shall feel much relieved."

"Relieve yourself of all embarrassment," returned Warner gayly. "If our acquaintance entails further scraps with those gentlemen, I shall be merely the more grateful to you."

They both laughed; Warner swung his long whip like a fly rod and caught the loop cleverly on his whip-stock.

Halkett, still laughing, said:

"You don't look as though you enjoyed a cabaret fight. You look far too respectable."

"Oh, I am respectable, I suppose. But I'm not very aged yet, and my student days are still rather near."

The road curved out now along the Récollette where it still flowed a placid stream between green meadows and through charming bits of woodland. In the glass of the flood the sunset sky was mirrored; swallows cut the still, golden surface; slowly spreading circles of rising fish starred it at intervals.

"So you don't go armed?" remarked Warner thoughtfully.

"No."

The American pointed with the butt of his whip to the dashboard where the blue-black butts of two automatics appeared from slung holsters.

"Why the artillery?" inquired Halkett.

"I drive my neighbor, Madame de Moidrey, sometimes; and in summer it is often dark before we return. It's a lovely country; also, the quarrymen at the cement works are a rough lot. So I let my pretty neighbor take no chances with me."

"Quite right," nodded Halkett. "When quarrymen get drunk it's no joke. What quarry is it?"

"The Esser Company. It's a German cement concern, I believe."

"German?"

"I believe so."

"Where is this quarry?"

"In the hills back of the Récollette. They run barges to Ausone. Just below their canal the Récollette becomes unnavigable, and the shallows and rapids continue for several miles below Saïs. That is the reason, I suppose, that the country around Saïs remains primitive and undeveloped, lacking as it does railroad and water transportation."

"I wonder," said Halkett thoughtfully, "whether I might see the quarry and cement works. It must be interesting."

Warner shrugged:

"If that sort of thing interests you, I'll take you over. It's a messy place full of stone crushers and derricks and broken rock and pits full of green water. Still, if you want to see it – "

"Thanks, I should like to."

Warner glanced at him; a slight grin touched his lips.

"You seem to be interested in a great many kinds of business," he said, " – literature, military science, cement works, cabaret life – "

Halkett laughed outright; but the next moment he turned like a flash in his seat, and Warner also cast a quick glance behind him.

"A car coming!" he said, driving to the right. "What's the matter, Halkett? You don't think it's after us?"

"I think it is."

"What?"

"I know damned well it is!" said Halkett between his teeth. "Shall I jump and swim for it? Pull in a moment, Warner – "

"Wait! Do you see that gate in the hedge? Get out and open it. Quick, Halkett! I know what to do – "

Halkett leaped, dragged open the gate; Warner swung his horse and drove through and out into a swampy meadow set with wild flowers and bushes and slender saplings.

The wheels of the cart cut through the spongy sod and sank almost to the hubs, but Warner used his whip and Halkett, taking the horse by the head, ran forward beside the swaying cart. Right across their path flowed a deep, narrow stream, partly invisible between reeds and tufts of swamp weed; Warner turned the vehicle with difficulty, urged his nervous horse across a cattle bridge which had been fashioned out of a few loose planks, and drove up on firmer ground among tall ferns and willow bushes.

"Pull up those planks!" he shouted back to Halkett, guiding his horse with difficulty; and Halkett ran back, lifted the mossy, half rotted planks, and threw them up among the bushes.

A grey touring car which had halted on the highway outside the hedge had now turned after them through the gate; and already the driver was having a bad time of it in the swampy meadow.

As Halkett lifted the last plank that spanned the brook, one of three men in the tonneau of the car stood up and fired a revolver at him; and another of the men, seated beside him, also fired deliberately, resting his elbow on the side of the stalled car to steady his aim, and supporting the revolver with his left hand under the barrel.

Halkett ran back to where the cart stood, partly concealed among the ferns and bushes; Warner, holding whip and reins in one hand, passed him an automatic revolver and drew out the other weapon for his own use.

"This is rottenly ungrateful of me," said the Englishman. "I've certainly involved you now!"

"It's all right; I'm enjoying it! Now, Halkett, their car is badly mired. There is another gate to that hedge a few hundred yards below. If you'll just lay those planks in the cart, we'll drive along the hard ground here and make another bridge below."

Halkett picked up the wet and muddy planks, one by one, and placed them crossways in the cart. Then, at a nod from Warner, he climbed up and the cart started slowly south, winding cautiously in and out among the bushes.