The fall should have broken his neck. At the worst it should have
stunned him. Evidently it didn't. When Duchemin had scrambled up to the
box, captured the reins and brought the nags to a stop--no great feat
that; they were quite sated with the voluptuousness of running away and
well content to heed the hand and voice of authority--and when,
finally, he swung them round and drove back toward the cirque, he saw
no sign of his Apache by the roadside.
So he congratulated himself on the forethought which had possessed him
of the pistol. Otherwise the assassin, since he had retained sufficient
wit and strength to crawl into hiding, could and assuredly would have
potted Monsieur Duchemin with neither difficulty nor compunction.
Not five figures but four only were waiting beside the cirque when,
wheeling the barouche as near the group as the lay of the ground
permitted, he climbed down. A man lay at length in the coarse grass,
his head pillowed in the lap of one woman. Another woman stood aside,
trembling and wringing aged hands. The third knelt beside the supine
man, but rose quickly as Duchemin drew near, and came to meet him.
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