It
was hard, too, for the weather had been dry for a long time. The loud
clatter of the horses' hoofs was some relief to my eager heart.
There is a place where this road passes near the verge of a precipice,
which, like that at Maury, falls sheer to the road along the River Creuse
from Clochonne to Narjec. But, unlike that at Maury, this declivity is
bare of trees.
We were galloping steadily on and were approaching this place in the
road. Frojac was now riding at my side, as there was room for two
horsemen to go abreast.
"Hark!" said Frojac, suddenly. "Do you hear something?"
I heard the sounds made by our riding, but no other.
"Horsemen," he went on. "And men afoot, on the march!"
"Where?" I asked. We continued to gallop forward.
"Ahead," he answered. "Don't you hear, monsieur?"
I listened. Yes, there was the far-off sound of many shod feet striking
hard earth.
"It is ahead," said I.
"A body of troops," said Frojac.
"Then we may catch up with them."
"Or meet them. Perhaps they are coming this way."
"Troops on a night march!" said I.
Frojac looked at me. I saw written on his face the same thought that he
saw on mine.
"Whose else could they be?" he said. "And for what other purpose?"
Had Monsieur de la Chatre, then, chosen this night for a surprise and
attack on me at Maury? If he knew my hiding-place, why should he not have
done so? The idea of the ambush, then, had been abandoned? Perhaps,
indeed, the plan that I had overheard Montignac outline to La Chatre had
been greatly modified.
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