"It seems to me that the Royal Germans are coming back again," he said.
Indeed a troop of horse was heard coming at the walking gait.
"Quick, quick, they are returning," said Pitou.
"Billet looked around to see what means of resistance were offered, but the place was almost deserted.
He went down Chartres Street, followed by Pitou who dragged the sabre after him by the scabbard-straps, not knowing how it ought to be hooked up till Billet showed him.
"You looked like a traveling-tinker," he said.
On Louis XV. Square they met the column, started off to go over the river to the Invalides but stopped short. The bridges and the Champs Elysées were blocked.
"Try the Tuileries Garden bridge," suggested Billet.
It was quite a simple proposition; the mob accepted it and followed Billet: but swords shining half way to the Gardens indicated that cavalry intercepted the march to that bridge.
"These confounded dragoons are everywhere," grumbled the farmer.
"I believe we are caught," said his friend.
"Nonsense, five or six thousand men are to be caught, and we are that strong."
The dragoons came forward, slowly, but it was an advance.
"The Royale Street is left us," said Billet; "come this way, Ange."
But a line of soldiers shut this street up.
"It looks as though you were right," said the countryman.
"Alas!" sighed Ange, who had followed him like his shadow.
All his regret at not being wrong was shown in the single word by the tone it was spoken in.
By its clamor and motion the mob showed that it was no less sensible than he about the quandary all were in.
Indeed, by a skillful manoeuvre, Prince Lambesq had encircled the rioters in a bow of iron, the cord being represented by the Tuileries garden-wall, hard to climb over, and the drawbridge railing, almost impossible to force. Billet judged that the position was bad. Still, being a cool fellow, full of resources when the emergency rose, he looked round him. Seeing a pile of lumber by the riverside, he said:
Billet went up to a beam and took up one end, making a nod to his followers as much as to say, "Take your end of it."
Pitou was bent on helping his leader without questioning: he had such trust in him that he would have gone down into sheol without grumbling on the length of the road or how the heat increased as they got on. The pair returned to the waterside walk, carrying a burden which half a dozen ordinary men would have sunk under.