Radcliff's creation. All these windings and turnings, during which the
king heard the sound of falling water over his head, ended at last in a
long corridor closed by an iron door. The figure with the lamp opened
the door with one of the keys he wore suspended at his girdle, where,
during the whole of the time, the king had heard them rattle. As soon as
the door was opened and admitted the air, Louis recognized the balmy
odors which are exhaled by the trees after a hot summer's day. He
paused, hesitatingly, for a moment or two; but his huge companion who
followed him thrust him out of the subterranean passage.

"Another blow," said the king, turning toward the one who had just had
the audacity to touch his sovereign; "what do you intend to do with the
king of France?"

"Try and forget that word," replied the man with the lamp, in a tone
which as little admitted of a reply as one of the famous decrees of
Minos.

"You deserve to be broken on the wheel for the word you have just made
use of," said the giant, as he extinguished the lamp his companion
handed to him; "but the king is too kind-hearted."

Louis, at that threat made so sudden a movement that it seemed as if he
meditated flight; but the giant's hand was in a moment placed on his
shoulder, and fixed him motionless where he stood. "But tell me, at
least, where we are going," said the king.

"Come," replied the former of the two men, with a kind of respect in his
manner, and leading his prisoner toward a carriage which seemed to be
in waiting.

The carriage was completely concealed amid the trees. Two horses, with
their feet fettered, were fastened by a halter to the lower branches of
a large oak.

"Get in," said the same man, opening the carriage door and letting down
the step. The king obeyed, seated himself at the back of the carriage,
the padded door of which was shut and locked immediately upon him and
his guide. As for the giant, he cut the fastenings by which the horses
were bound, harnessed them himself, and mounted on the box of the
carriage, which was unoccupied. The carriage set off immediately at a
quick trot, turned into the road to Paris, and in the forest of Senart
found a relay of horses fastened to the trees in the same manner the
first horses had been, and without a postilion. The man on the box
changed the horses, and continued to follow the road toward Paris with
the same rapidity, and entered the city about three o'clock in the
morning