The fancied sound brought him to his senses. Louis was at least alive, and whatever were his injury it was madness to stay to examine it on the high-road. He looked round. Not five yards from the dark figure at his feet there was a coppice running straight inland from the road, and bordering a field. And . . . yes, thank Heaven! . . . there was a gate in the field; Heaven send also that it were not fastened! Château-Foix sprang to it. It was not secured, but swung easily open when the latch was lifted. He came back and dragged at his cousin. Louis was slightly built, and he himself muscular, but it was no very easy task to lift such a dead weight from the ground. With the Vicomte at last in his arms, staggering a little beneath the weight, he hurried through the gate, shutting it with his foot. The field stretched away in front and on the right with no sign of cover. The coppice which marched with it was plainly their best chance of safety, and Château-Foix plodded on beside it, looking for a gap in its strong boundary hedge of thorn, over which the trees leaned with little rustlings in the night wind, mocking him with the shelter he could not attain. For himself he might have forced a way, but it was out of the question to drag Louis through. A couple of sheep tumbled up almost under his feet, and cantered off, bleating. “Enough to give the alarm,” thought the Marquis. How heavy Louis was, and how still; it was like carrying a dead man. With an effort he shifted him higher over his shoulder; as he did so his cousin’s sleeve brushed against his cheek, and the sleeve was wet. He was now thirty yards or so from the road, and was beginning to despair of finding an opening, when suddenly the hedge thinned, presenting a narrow gap. He stumbled through it, took a few steps into the thickness of the coppice, laid his burden under a tree, and sank exhausted beside it. It was much darker in the little wood, and though there was still no sign of pursuit, he feared to strike a light. However, he could just distinguish Louis’ pale features when he bent over him, and on unfastening his clothes his shirt glimmered white, except where it was stained a much darker hue. His heart was beating faintly but regularly, yet the Marquis exclaimed as his fingers met the lukewarm trickle whose nature he guessed too easily. As much by feeling as by sight he located its source, a stab in the left shoulder; how dangerous it was impossible to tell in the starlight. Presumably its recipient had fainted from loss of blood, a not very surprising consequence of his hasty flight.