lower passage to suffocation. As I struggled fiercely with them Simon
aided me by crying 'A doctor! a doctor! make way there!' and this
induced many to give place to me under the idea that I was an accredited
messenger. Eventually I succeeded in forcing my way through and reaching
the courtyard; being, as it turned out, the first person to issue from
the Chateau. A dozen people sprang towards me with anxious eyes and
questions on their lips; but I ran past them and, catching the Cid,
which was fortunately at hand, by the rein, bounded into the saddle.

As I turned the horse to the gate I heard Simon cry after me. 'The
Scholars' Meadow! Go that way!' and then I heard no more. I was out of
the yard and galloping bare-headed down the pitched street, while women
snatched their infants up and ran aside, and men came startled to the
doors, crying that the League was upon us. As the good horse flung up
his head and bounded forward, hurling the gravel behind him with hoofs
which slid and clattered on the pavement, as the wind began to whistle
by me, and I seized the reins in a shorter grip, I felt my heart bound
with exultation. I experienced such a blessed relief and elation as the
prisoner long fettered and confined feels when restored to the air of
heaven.

Down one street and through a narrow lane we thundered, until a broken
gateway stopped with fascines--through which the Cid blundered and
stumbled--brought us at a bound into the Scholars' Meadow just as the
tardy sun broke through the clouds and flooded the low, wide plain with
brightness. Half a league in front of us the towers of Meudon rose to
view on a hill. In the distance, to the left, lay the walls of Paris,
and nearer, on the same side, a dozen forts and batteries; while here
and there, in that quarter, a shining clump of spears or a dense mass of
infantry betrayed the enemy's presence.

I heeded none of these things, however, nor anything except the towers
of Meudon, setting the Cid's head straight for these and riding on at
the top of his speed. Swiftly ditch and dyke came into view before us
and flashed away beneath us. Men lying in pits rose up and aimed at us;
or ran with cries to intercept us. A cannon-shot fired from the fort
by Issy tore up the earth to one side; a knot of lancers sped from the
shelter of an earthwork in the same quarter, and raced us for half a
mile, with frantic shouts and threats of vengeance. But all such efforts
were vanity. The