He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all understood him. We climbed into the _limonière_; the stranger followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle--three horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view. “Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile. He was a fair-faced young man, bold-mouthed, and ripe with self-assurance. His dress was of the English fashion--straight-crowned beaver hat, with the band buckled in front, green tabinet kerchief, claret-coloured coat tight-buttoned,--altogether a figure very spruce and clean, like a _piqueur d’écurie_. I regarded him in solemn amazement. The whole rapid incident had been of a nature to make me doubt whether I was awake or dreaming. “_Ma mie_,” said Carinne, reproachfully; “Milord awaits your explanation.” I rose a little and bowed. “Monsieur,” said I, stupidly, “we are Jorinde and Joringel.” * * * * * * * Sir Comely, a fine scapegrace, had journeyed to Paris out of curiosity to witness a guillotining. With him, in the packet, crossed Monsieur Tithon Riouffe, an _émigré_ returning, under safe-conduct of the ineffective Barrère, to snatch his wife from the whirlpool. The two gentlemen met, hobnobbed, and shared a four-wheeled carriage as far as the tragic city, whence (as agreed between them) on a certain day of the fifteen during which the vehicle remained at the _Remise_ at their disposition, they--accompanied, it was to be hoped, by madame--were to return in it to Calais. The day arrived; M. Riouffe failed to keep his appointment. The other awaited him, so long as a certain urgency of affairs permitted. At length--his own safety being a little menaced--he was driven to start on the return journey alone. All this we learned of him, and he of us the broad outline of our story. A full confidence was the only policy possible to our dilemma. He honoured it _en prince_. He was quite admirably concerned to hear of the fate of his fellow-traveller--_le malheureux chevreuil_! he called him. The extraordinary concatenation of chances that had substituted us for that other two did not, however, appear to strike him particularly. But he “strapped his vitalities!” (that is, as we understood it, “lashed himself into merriment”), in the insular manner, very often and very loudly, over this chance presented to him of hoodwinking the authorities.