"The moon's up and it's time to start. No more of this good-by business, or it'll be good-by for good," he said, as they all stood at the cottage door, the pine-filled air from the forest blowing about them.
"You'd best go to the hut and stay if there's trouble. You'll be safe enough there," he said, and he did not sneer as was his wont. There was a dignity about him that none of them had seen before. He was risking his life for people whom he despised, and he was doing it for the sake of a friend. Perhaps, sometime, he would do the like for sheer love of his brother man. At any rate, he had taken the first step in that direction.
They were off at last, all of them in the great roomy coach, Bertran and Grigge sitting beside the driver. The horses, after a good rest and feed, went like the wind itself! It seemed as though they knew that danger lay behind!
The girls and the governess were tired and bewildered and heartsick. They could think of nothing but Marie Josephine. Finally, after they had thought and said all that they could about the runaways, Denise remarked:
"It's so wonderful to think they dared to go to Paris. The road is direct enough and Marie Josephine knows it well by coach, but little Jean knows nothing."
"I teased him once because he had never been anywhere, and he said some day he was going to visit his cousins near Melon," said Bertran.
The driver turned and looked at him. "Melon--let me see--Melon. Why, I took in two children the other day. They seemed dead beat out, and slept all day in the back of the coach. The boy told me, in the evening, that he had cousins near Melon!"
The exclamations and the questions were so numerous that Champar was sorry he had spoken.
"Stop and tell us at once. We must know about the children going to Melon," they begged, but he paid not the slightest attention to their entreaties and only urged the horses to go faster. He intended driving all night, and it was not until he stopped to rest the horses before they took a hill, that he spoke again at all.
"Now just you listen to me, citizeness, and you young people. You've got yourselves to think about and you're not going to help the young brats who've run away by getting your heads snapped off by the guillotine, which," he went on, speaking impressively and with something of a relish, "is what is happening to most of your acquaintances, and serves them right, too, some of them. Now, maybe the two I picked up were the parties you're talking about. The boy certainly did look a great deal like the woman you went to say good-by to at the cottage. A fine woman," he went on meditatively, "a good, honest, sensible woman. Well, I'll tell you what I think, and you needn't have any fits about it. I think them two parties is just as lively to-day as you are yourselves. I think they're in Paris, and I'll get word to the shepherd about them, too!" After he had delivered this long speech, the driver picked up his whip to go on when the governess spoke again.