He is certain to come again in an hour or two.
It is only eleven. Now I'll play him a trick." O'Brien then took one of
the blankets, make it fast to the window, which he left wide open, and
at the same time disarranged the images he had made up, so as to let the
gendarme perceive that they were counterfeit. We again crept under the
bed, and as O'Brien foretold, in about an hour more the gendarme
returned; our lamp was still burning, but he had a light of his own. He
looked at the beds, perceived at once that he had been duped, went to
the open window, and then exclaimed, "_Sacre Dieu! ils m'ont echappes et
je ne suis plus caporal. F----tre! a la chasse_!" He rushed out of the
room, and in a minute afterwards we heard him open the street door, and
go away.
"That will do, Peter," said O'Brien, laughing; "now we'll be off also,
although there's no great hurry." O'Brien then resumed his dress of a
gendarme; and about an hour afterwards we went down, and wishing the
hostess all happiness, quitted the cabaret, returning the same road by
which we had come. "Now, Peter," said O'Brien, "we're in a bit of a
puzzle. This dress won't do any more, still there's a respectability
about it, which will not allow me to put it off till the last moment."
We walked on till daylight, when we hid ourselves in a copse of trees.
At night we again started for the forest of Ardennes, for O'Brien said
our best chance was to return, until they supposed that we had had time
to effect our escape; but we never reached the forest, for on the next
day a violent snowstorm came on; it continued without intermission for
four days, during which we suffered much.
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