e faces of those who sprung forward. The horses reared and plunged, the
harness held, and the equipage was off. The crowd went with it.

"Turn the coach over!" they cry, and attempt it, but fail. "Drag her out!"

They try to do it, again and again, but in vain; away it rattles! Away it
flashes! down Hospital street, past Bourbon, Dauphine, Burgundy, and the
Rampart, with the crowd following, yelling, but fast growing thin and
thinner.

"Stop her! Stop her! Stop that carriage! Stop that _carriage_!"

In vain! On it spins! Out upon the Bayou Road come the pattering hoofs and
humming wheels--not wildly driven, but just at their most telling
speed--into the whole whirling retinue of fashionable New Orleans out for
its afternoon airing. Past this equipage; past that one; past half a
dozen; a dozen; a score! Their inmates sit chatting in every sort of mood
over the day's sensation, when--what is this? A rush from behind, a whirl
of white dust, and--"As I live, there she goes now, on her regular drive!
What scandalous speed! and--see here! they are after her!" Past fifty gigs
and coaches; past a hundred; around this long bend in the road; around
that one. Good-bye, pursuers! Never a chance to cut her off, the swamp
forever on the right, the bayou on the left; she is getting away, getting
away! the crowd is miles behind!

The lake is reached. The road ends. What next? The coach dashes up to the
bayou's edge and stops. Why just here? Ah! because just here so near the
bayou's mouth a schooner lies against the bank. Is Dr. Lalaurie's hand in
this? The coachman parleys a moment with the schooner-master and hands him
down a purse of gold. The coach-door is opened, the lady alights, and is
presently on the vessel's deck. The lines are cast off, the great sails go
up, the few lookers-on are there without reference to her and offer no
interruption; a little pushing with poles lets the wind fill the canvas,
and first slowly and silently, and then swiftly and with a grateful
creaking of cordage and spars, the vessel glides out past the lighthouse,
through the narrow opening, and stands away towards the northern horizon,
below which, some thirty miles away, lies the little watering-place of
Mandeville with roads leading as far away northward as one may choose to
fly. Madame Lalaurie is gone!

The brave coachman--one cannot help admiring the villain's
intrepidity--turned and drove back towards the city. What his plan was is
not furthe