Was it wonderful, when they had suffered so much on that northern bank?
When their experience during the month had been comparable only with the
direst nightmare? Yet one among them, after the first impulse of relief
and satisfaction, felt differently. Tignonville's gorge rose against the
sense of compulsion, of inferiority. To be driven forward after this
fashion, whether he would or no, to be placed at the back of every base-
born man-at-arms, to have no clearer knowledge of what had happened or of
what was passing, or of the peril from which they fled, than the women
among whom he rode--these things kindled anew the sullen fire of hate.
North of the Loire there had been some excuse for his inaction under
insult; he had been in the man's country and power. But south of the
Loire, within forty leagues of Huguenot Niort, must he still suffer,
still be supine?
His rage was inflamed by a disappointment he presently underwent. Looking
back as they rode clear of the wooden houses of Ponts de Ce, he missed
Tavannes and several of his men; and he wondered if Count Hannibal had
remained on his own side of the river. It seemed possible; and in that
event La Tribe and he and Carlat might deal with Badelon and the four who
still escorted them. But when he looked back a minute later, Tavannes
was within sight, following the party with a stern face; and not Tavannes
only. Bigot, with two of the ten men who hitherto had been missing, was
with him.
It was clear, however, that they brought no good news, for they had
scarcely ridden up before Count Hannibal cried, "Faster! faster!" in his
harshest voice, and Bigot urged the horses to a quicker trot. Their
course lay almost parallel with the Loire in the direction of Beaupreau;
and Tignonville began to fear that Count Hannibal intended to recross the
river at Nantes, where the only bridge below Angers spanned the stream.
With this in view it was easy to comprehend his wish to distance his
pursuers before he recrossed.
The Countess had no such thought. "They must be close upon us!" she
murmured, as she urged her horse in obedience to the order.
"Whoever they are!" Tignonville muttered bitterly. "If we knew what had
happened, or who followed, we should know more about it, Madame. For
that matter, I know what I wish he would do. And our heads are set for
it."
"What?"
"Make for Vrillac!" he answered, a savage gleam in his eyes.
"For Vrillac?"
"Yes."
"Ah, if he would!" she cried, her face turning pale. "If he would. He
would be safe there!"
"Ay, quite safe!" he answered with a peculiar intonation. And he looked
at her askance.
He fancied that his thought, the thought which had just flashed into his
brain, was her thought; that she had the same notion in reserve, and that
they were in sympathy. And Tavannes, seeing them talking together, and
noting her look and the fervour of her gesture, formed the same opinion,
and retired more darkly into himself. The downfall of his plan for
dazzling her by a magnanimity unparalleled and beyond compare, a plan
dependent on the submission of Angers--his disappointment in this might
have roused the worst passions of a better man. But there was in this
man a pride on a level at least with his other passions: and to bear
himself in this hour of defeat and flight so that if she could not love
him she must admire him, checked in a strange degree the current of his
rage.