'There's my answer,' said Louis, raising his right arm, which was dripping; with blood, 'you have made me mount the red flag!'
'Ha!' cried the friendly fishwife, 'Wounded in the cause of the nation! Let him go.'
'He has not uttered the cry!' shouted the rest.
Louis looked round with his cool, pensive smile.
'Liberty!' he said, 'what _we_ mean by liberty is freedom to go where we will, and say what we will. I wish you had it, my poor fellows. Fraternity-it is not shooting our brother. Egalite-I preach that too, but in my own fashion, not yours. Let me pass-si cela vou est egal.'
His nonchalant intrepidity-a quality never lost on the French- raised an acclamation of le brave Anglais. No one stirred a hand to hinder their mounting to the banquette, and several hands were held out to assist in surmounting the parapet of this extempore fortification. Isabel bowed her thanks, and Louis spoke them with gestures of courtesy; and shouts of high applause followed them as they sped along the blood-stained street.
The troops were re-forming after the repulse, and the point was to pass before the attack could be renewed, as well as not to be mistaken for the insurgents.
They were at once challenged, but a short explanation to the officer was sufficient, and they were suffered to turn into the Rue Richelieu, where they were only pursued by the distant sounds of warfare.
'Oh, Lord Fitzjocelyn!' cried Isabel, as he slackened his pace, and gasped for breath.
'You are sure you are not hurt?' he said.
'Oh no, no; but you-'
'It is very little,' he said-'a stray shot-only enough to work on their feelings. What good-natured rogues they were. I will only twist my handkerchief round to stop the blood. Thank you.'
Isabel tried to help him, but she was too much afraid of hurting him to draw the bandage tight.
They dashed on, finding people on the watch for tidings, and meeting bodies of the National Guard, and when at length they reached the Place Vendome, they found the whole establishment watching for them, and Virginia flew to meet them on the stairs, throwing her arms round her sister, while Lady Conway started forward with the agitated joy, and almost anger, of one who felt injured by the fright they had made her suffer.
'There you are! What has kept you! Delaford said they were slaughtering every one on the Boulevards!'
'I warned you of the consequences of taking me,' said Louis, dropping into a chair.
'Mamma! he is all over blood!' screamed Virginia.
Lady Conway recoiled, with a slight shriek.
'It is a trifle,' said Louis;' Isabel is safe. There is all cause for thankfulness. We could never have got through if she had not been every inch a heroine.'
'Oh, Lord Fitzjocelyn, if I could thank you!'
'Don't,' said Louis, with so exactly his peculiar droll look and smile, that all were reassured.
Isabel began to recount their adventure.
'In the midst of those horrid wretches! and the firing!' cried Lady Conway. 'My dear, how could you bear it? I should have died of fright!'
'There was no time for fear,' said Isabel, with a sort of scorn; 'I should have been ashamed to be frightened when Lord Fitzjocelyn took it so quietly. I was only afraid lest you should repeat their horrid war-cry. I honour your refusal.'
'Of course one would not in their sense, poor things, and on compulsion,' said Louis, his words coming the slower from the exhaustion which made him philosophize, rather than exert himself. 'In a true sense, it is the war-cry of our life.'
'How can you talk so!' cried Lady Conway. 'Delaford says the ruffians are certain to overpower the Guard. We must go directly. Very likely this delay of yours may prevent us from getting off at all.'
'I will find out whether the way be open,' said Louis, 'when I have-'
His words failed him, for as he rose, the handkerchief slipped off, a gush of blood came with it, and he was so faint that he could hardly reach the sofa.
Lady Conway screamed, Virginia rang the bells, Isabel gave orders that a surgeon should be called.
'Spirits from the vasty deep,' muttered Louis, in the midst of his faintness, 'the surgeons have graver work on hand.'
'For heaven's sake, don't talk so!' cried his aunt, without daring to look at him; 'I know your arm is broken!'
'Broken bones are a very different matter, experto crede. This will be all right when I can stop the bleeding,' and steadying himself with difficulty, he reached the door, and slowly repaired to his own room, while the girls sent Fanshawe and Delaford to his assistance.
Lady Conway, unable to bear the sight of blood, was in a state of nervous sobbing, which Virginia's excited restlessness did not tend to compose; and Isabel walked up and down the room, wishing that she could do anything, looking reproachfully at her mother, and exalting to the skies the courage, presence of mind, and fortitude of the wounded knight.
Presently, Delaford came down with a message from Lord Fitzjocelyn that it was of no use to wait for him, for as the butler expressed it, 'the haemorrhage was pertinacious,' and he begged that the ladies would depart without regard to him. 'In fact,' said Delaford, 'it was a serious crisis, and there was no time to be lost; an English gentleman, Captain Lonsdale, who had already offered his services, would take care of his lordship, and my Lady had better secure herself and the young ladies.'
'Leave Fitzjocelyn!' cried Virginia.
'Is it very dangerous, Delaford?' asked Lady Conway.
'I would not be responsible for the consequences of remaining, my Lady,' was the answer. 'Shall I order the horses to be brought out?'
'I don't know. Is the street full of people? Oh! there is firing! What shall I do? Isabel, what do you say!'
Isabel was sitting still and upright; she hardly raised her eyelids, as she tranquilly said, 'Nothing shall induce me to go till he is better.'
'Isabel! this is most extraordinary! Do you know what you are saying?'
Isabel did not weaken her words by repetition, but signed to Delaford to leave them, and he never ventured to disregard Miss Conway. Virginia hung about her, and declared that she was quite right; and Lady Conway, in restless despair, predicted that they would all be massacred, and that her nephew would bleed to death, and appealed to every one on the iniquity of all the doctors in Paris for not coming near him.
Poor Louis himself was finding it very forlorn to be left to Fanshawe, whose one idea was essences, and Delaford, who suggested nothing but brandy. Some aunts and cousins he had, who would not have left him to their tender mercies. He was growing confused and feeble, speculating upon arteries, and then starting from a delusion of Mary's voice to realize his condition, and try to waken his benumbed faculties.
At last, a decided step was heard, and he saw standing by him a vigorous, practical-looking Englishman, and a black-eyed, white- hooded little Soeur de Charite. Captain Lonsdale, on hearing the calls for surgical aid, had without a word, hurried out and secured the brisk little Sister, who, with much gesticulation, took possession of the arm, and pronounced it a mere trifle, which would have been nothing but for the loss of blood, the ball having simply passed through the fleshy part of the arm, avoiding the bone. Louis, pleased with this encounter as a result of the adventure, was soon in condition to rise, though with white cheeks and tottering step, and to present to Lady Conway her new defender.
The sight of a bold, lively English soldier was a grand consolation, even though he entirely destroyed all plans of escape by assuring her that there was a tremendous disturbance in the direction of the Northern Railway, and that the only safe place for ladies was just where she was. He made various expeditions to procure intelligence, and his tidings were cheerful enough to counteract the horrible stories that Delaford was constantly bringing in, throughout that Saturday, the dreadful 24th of June, 1848.