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wish to hire a cabriolet.’
These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a
child made the perspiration trickle down his limbs. He
thought that he beheld the hand which had relaxed its grasp
reappear in the darkness behind him, ready to seize him
once more.
He answered:—
‘Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which
I can hire.’
And he hastened to add:—
‘But there is none in the place.’
‘Certainly there is,’ said the old woman.
‘Where?’ interpolated the wheelwright.
‘At my house,’ replied the old woman.
He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again.
The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket
spring-cart. The wheelwright and the stable-man, in de-
spair at the prospect of the traveller escaping their clutches,
interfered.
‘It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an
actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather
thongs; the rain came into it; the wheels were rusted and
eaten with moisture; it would not go much further than the
tilbury; a regular ramshackle old stage-wagon; the gentle-
man would make a great mistake if he trusted himself to
it,’ etc., etc.
All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old ve-
hicle, this thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and
could go to Arras.