up with a new joy and a new-born hope! "Did he get away?" I
cried eagerly. "Did he escape, mother, then?"

"Ay, that he did!" she replied quickly. "That poor fellow,
yonder--he lies quiet enough now God forgive him his heresy, say
I!--kept the door manfully while the gentleman got on the roof,
and ran right down the street on the tops of the houses, with
them firing and hooting at him: for all the world as if he had
been a squirrel and they a pack of boys with stones!"

"And he escaped?"

"Escaped!" she answered more slowly, shaking her old head in
doubt. "I do not know about that I fear they have got him by
now, gentlemen. I have been shivering and shaking up stairs with
my husband--he is in bed, good man, and the safest place for him
--the saints have mercy upon us! But I heard them go with their
shouting and gunpowder right along to the river, and I doubt they
will take him between this and the CHATELET! I doubt they will."

"How long ago was it, dame?" I cried.

"Oh! may be half an hour. Perhaps you are friends of his?" she
added questioningly.

But I did not stay to answer her. I shook Croisette, who had not
heard a word of this, by the shoulder. "There is a chance that he
has escaped!" I cried in his ear. "Escaped, do you hear?" And I
told him hastily what she had said.