"Thank heaven! thank heaven!" said one of the wags (who, indeed, during the slumbers of Poinsinet had been occupied in making these very holes through the garments of that individual), "if you have escaped, it is by a miracle.Alas! alas! all your enemies have not been so lucky.""How! is anybody wounded?" said Poinsinet.
"My dearest friend, prepare yourself; that unhappy man who came to revenge his menaced honor--that gallant officer--that injured husband, Colonel Count de Cartentierce--""Well?"
"IS NO MORE! he died this morning, pierced through with nineteen wounds from your hand, and calling upon his country to revenge his murder."When this awful sentence was pronounced, all the auditory gave a pathetic and simultaneous sob; and as for Poinsinet, he sank back on his bed with a howl of terror, which would have melted a Visigoth to tears, or to laughter.As soon as his terror and remorse had, in some degree, subsided, his comrades spoke to him of the necessity of making his escape; and, huddling on his clothes, and bidding them all a tender adieu, he set off, incontinently, without his breakfast, for England, America, or Russia, not knowing exactly which.
One of his companions agreed to accompany him on a part of this journey,--that is, as far as the barrier of St.Denis, which is, as everybody knows, on the high road to Dover; and there, being tolerably secure, they entered a tavern for breakfast; which meal, the last that he ever was to take, perhaps, in his native city, Poinsinet was just about to discuss, when, behold! a gentleman entered the apartment where Poinsinet and his friend were seated, and, drawing from his pocket a paper, with "AU NOM DU ROY"flourished on the top, read from it, or rather from Poinsinet's own figure, his exact signalement, laid his hand on his shoulder, and arrested him in the name of the King, and of the provost-marshal of Paris."I arrest you, sir," said he, gravely, "with regret; you have slain, with seventeen wounds, in single combat, Colonel Count de Cartentierce, one of his Majesty's household; and, as his murderer, you fall under the immediate authority of the provost-marshal, and die without trial or benefit of clergy."You may fancy how the poor little man's appetite fell when he heard this speech."In the provost-marshal's hands?" said his friend:
"then it is all over, indeed! When does my poor friend suffer, sir?""At half-past six o'clock, the day after to-morrow," said the officer, sitting down, and helping himself to wine."But stop,"said he, suddenly; "sure I can't mistake? Yes--no--yes, it is.My dear friend, my dear Durand! don't you recollect your old schoolfellow, Antoine?" And herewith the officer flung himself into the arms of Durand, Poinsinet's comrade, and they performed a most affecting scene of friendship.
"This may be of some service to you," whispered Durand to Poinsinet; and, after some further parley, he asked the officer when he was bound to deliver up his prisoner; and, hearing that he was not called upon to appear at the Marshalsea before six o'clock at night, Monsieur Durand prevailed upon Monsieur Antoine to wait until that hour, and in the meantime to allow his prisoner to walk about the town in his company.This request was, with a little difficulty, granted; and poor Poinsinet begged to be carried to the houses of his various friends, and bid them farewell.Some were aware of the trick that had been played upon him: others were not;but the poor little man's credulity was so great, that it was impossible to undeceive him; and he went from house to house bewailing his fate, and followed by the complaisant marshal's officer.
The news of his death he received with much more meekness than could have been expected; but what he could not reconcile to himself was, the idea of dissection afterwards."What can they want with me?" cried the poor wretch, in an unusual fit of candor.
"I am very small and ugly; it would be different if I were a tall fine-looking fellow." But he was given to understand that beauty made very little difference to the surgeons, who, on the contrary, would, on certain occasions, prefer a deformed man to a handsome one; for science was much advanced by the study of such monstrosities.With this reason Poinsinet was obliged to be content; and so paid his rounds of visits, and repeated his dismal adieux.
The officer of the provost-marshal, however amusing Poinsinet's woes might have been, began, by this time, to grow very weary of them, and gave him more than one opportunity to escape.He would stop at shop-windows, loiter round corners, and look up in the sky, but all in vain: Poinsinet would not escape, do what the other would.At length, luckily, about dinner-time, the officer met one of Poinsinet's friends and his own: and the three agreed to dine at a tavern, as they had breakfasted; and here the officer, who vowed that he had been up for five weeks incessantly, fell suddenly asleep, in the profoundest fatigue; and Poinsinet was persuaded, after much hesitation on his part, to take leave of him.
And now, this danger overcome, another was to be avoided.Beyond a doubt the police were after him, and how was he to avoid them? He must be disguised, of course; and one of his friends, a tall, gaunt lawyer's clerk, agreed to provide him with habits.
So little Poinsinet dressed himself out in the clerk's dingy black suit, of which the knee-breeches hung down to his heels, and the waist of the coat reached to the calves of his legs; and, furthermore, he blacked his eyebrows, and wore a huge black periwig, in which his friend vowed that no one could recognize him.
