urned. Henri got in hastily.
Already a few curious onlookers had assembled like sheep on the
boulevard. Henri was strong; he tried to play the mulatto. When the
carriage started at a gallop he seized his hands, in order to master
him, and retain, by subduing his attendant, the possession of his
faculties, so that he might know whither he was going. It was a vain
attempt. The eyes of the mulatto flashed from the darkness. The fellow
uttered a cry which his fury stifled in his throat, released himself,
threw back De Marsay with a hand like iron, and nailed him, so to
speak, to the bottom of the carriage; then with his free hand, he drew
a triangular dagger, and whistled. The coachman heard the whistle and
stopped. Henri was unarmed, he was forced to yield. He moved his head
towards the handkerchief. The gesture of submission calmed Cristemio,
and he bound his eyes with a respect and care which manifested a sort
of veneration for the person of the man whom his idol loved. But, before
taking this course, he had placed his dagger distrustfully in his side
pocket, and buttoned himself up to the chin.

"That nigger would have killed me!" said De Marsay to himself.

Once more the carriage moved on rapidly. There was one resource still
open to a young man who knew Paris as well as Henri. To know whither
he was going, he had but to collect himself and count, by the number of
gutters crossed, the streets leading from the boulevards by which the
carriage passed, so long as it continued straight along. He could thus
discover into which lateral street it would turn, either towards the
Seine or towards the heights of Montmartre, and guess the name or
position of the street in which his guide should bring him to a halt.
But the violent emotion which his struggle had caused him, the rage into
which his compromised dignity had thrown him, the ideas of vengeance
to which he abandoned himself, the suppositions suggested to him by the
circumstantial care which this girl had taken in order to bring him
to her, all hindered him from the attention, which the blind have,
necessary for the concentration of his intelligence and the perfect
lucidity of his recollection. The journey lasted half an hour. When the
carriage stopped, it was no longer on the street. The mulatto and the
coachman took Henri in their arms, lifted him out, and, putting him
into a sort of litter, conveyed him across a garden. He could smell its
flowers and the perfume pecul