But I was fleet of foot, and behind me there was that that would lend wings
to the most deliberate, so that when I turned into the open space before
the Hôtel Vendôme I had set a good fifty yards betwixt myself and the
foremost of my hunters.

A coach was passing at that moment. I shouted, and the knave who drove
glanced at me, then up the Rue Monarque at my pursuers, whereupon, shaking
his head, he would have left me to my fate. But I was of another mind. I
dashed towards the vehicle, and as it passed me I caught at the window,
which luckily was open, and drawing up my legs I hung there despite the
shower of mud which the revolving wheels deposited upon me.

From the bowels of the coach I was greeted by a woman's scream; a pale
face, and a profusion of fair hair flashed before my eyes.

"Fear not, Madame," I shouted. "I am no assassin, but rather one who
stands in imminent peril of assassination, and who craves your protection."

More I would have said, but at that juncture the lash of the coachman's
whip curled itself about my shoulders, and stung me vilely.

"Get down, you rascal," he bellowed; "get down or I'll draw rein!"

To obey him would have been madness. The crowd surged behind with hoots
and yells, and had I let go I must perforce have fallen into their hands.
So, instead of getting down as he inconsiderately counselled, I drew myself
farther up by a mighty effort, and thrust half my body into the coach,
whereupon the fair lady screamed again, and the whip caressed my legs. But
within the coach sat another woman, dark of hair and exquisite of face, who
eyed my advent with a disdainful glance. Her proud countenance bore the